All Forum Posts by: Eva Poon

Maybe a co-signer could help you qualify for your first credit card? If they have decent credit themselves, parents may be a good place to start as potential co-signer(s). Good luck!

Hi Muhammed! Happy New Year to you too. I'm not a mobile home park investor, but have appraised a few local ones out here in CA.  The mobile home parks I've worked on have always had a mix of properties: single-family residences, duplees/triplexes, spaces for single-wide/ double-wide trailers, RV parking spaces (these have license plates), marina/boat parking spaces and regular vehicle parking spaces, so it can take quite a while to figure out what everything was and who owned/ was responsible for it. I would imagine the ownership structure would be even further complicated when you cross state lines, so understanding ownership and responsibilities is very important. 

On the plus side, having different income streams could help with diversification. But being able to manage these different types of properties, especially from afar, is no easy task. 

I also see your renters as a possible pitfall. For a vacation mobile home park, renters tend to be very transient; like a motel, seasonality is a big issue for these mobile home parks (ie. not many people want to go car camping in the snow). For long-term residential mobile home parks, renters tend to be lower-income (as higher income renters can typically afford apartment units) so understanding this demographic and their needs becomes very important. 

I suppose that understanding your demographic and having good management are hurdles every long-distance real estate investor faces, but the issues are slightly different for mobile home parks as opposed to a standard apartment building. Good luck!

Hi Oliver, 

It really depends on the access and the location of your "warehouse" building. It sounds like your "warehouse" building could make for a pretty good mini-storage for your tenants. You could carve it up (into three, maybe more, units) and see if any of your tenants would be interested in renting additional space for storing things. (Apartments here in the SF Bay Area tend to be on the small side, so there is a huge demand for extra storage space out here.)

If your "warehouse" building is not at the back of the lot, or some other hard-to-reach place, you could convert it to additional parking. Again, on-site garage parking is pretty scarce out here, despite most people having garages. (A lot of people out here like to use their garages for things other than storing cars... some garages out here are even converted to bedrooms!) It really depends on your area, but in some parts of the country, additional garage parking can command a significant premium. 

On a similar note, I recently purchased a property that sounds somewhat similar to your warehouse. My property came on a large lot and with an enclosed former-airplane-hangar building (for very small airplanes). It has good power, is adjacent to a well on the property, and has windows. Although the previous owner had previously used the "warehouse" building as a workshop, and then later as a storage building, we plan to convert the space into a home-office or creative-office type space. Our property is very close to high-speed internet fiber and there is a shortage of office, including home office, type spaces here in the SF Bay Area. I'm hoping it works out as an office/home office, but if it doesn't another option for us is to convert the space into a garage, which would allow us to expand the existing SFR on the property.

If your zoning allows for it, conversion of the warehouse building to an additional residential unit would probably be the ideal use of the space. But even if that's not allowed, you still have many options. Good luck!  

There are still many, many opportunities to both live a simple life and still invest right here in the Bay Area. Maybe I am a little bit biased because I've lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 25 years, but I've never really felt like I have to compete with my neighbors: for most of those 25 years, I lived in San Francisco, where I never even met my neighbors and for the past few years, I've been living in a small suburb along the I-880 corridor. The majority of the residents here a mix of immigrant families, blue-collar workers and/or retirees, but the people here seem to live modest lives and housing here still remains relatively affordable. In fact, if you don't mind putting in a bit of elbow grease or being patient and waiting for the right opportunity, you can even still find the occasional 3-bedroom house for under a half million. <-- Yes, that's right here in the Bay Area (and it's not in a war-zone)! This also means that yes, there are still many investing opportunities right here in the Bay Area too. I myself bought an investment property here earlier this year: it was a serious fixed-upper, but I'll have nice little cash flow once renovations are complete. It seems to me that many of the really lucrative real estate investment opportunities here in the Bay Area require some specialized real estate knowledge, i.e. buying short sales, long-term buy and hold for appreciation, vacation rental investing, investing in commercial real estate, buying properties with expansion potential, etc. Note that some of these investing opportunities are only available in the Bay Area or similar, high-cost-of-living markets: I don't think vacation rental investing (and also long-term buy and hold for appreciation) would work out so well in certain parts of the United States...  

@John Arendsen

I don't normally chime in on real estate topics as controversial as marijuana and real estate, but I do a very interesting background on this topic, as my family was formerly the landlord of a medical marijuana dispensary. Now each landlord's experience with this differs (much like every landlord's real estate experiences differ) but ours was a fairly positive experience. 

At the time, we were struggling with vacancy issues, as our property is an older industrial property in a rougher part of town. The dispensary was also having issues finding a good location too: not only is there a stigma involved in being the landlord of anything marijuana-related, but here in the City of Oakland, dispensaries are limited in how and where they can operate. I recently spoke to a lawyer with some insight on this and he told me that dispensaries and grow houses (anything marijuana-related, for that matter) are heavily regulated by city and county laws. He told me that it's probably best to check with your local jurisdiction, as something as unrelated-sounding as zoning designation can have a significant impact on the legality of dispensaries and grow operations in a specific location (but it sounds like you already knew that, lol)

. 

Anyways, the laws in Oakland proved to be very favorable for dispensary landlords in that: 

1) All dispensary patients not only had to have a license for their medicine, but their prescription could not be used within a 100-foot radius of the dispensary itself. This was extremely beneficial as we did not have to deal with any potential increased fire hazards or smells that come from smoking marijuana. 

2) Because the dispensaries were only allowed to operate within a very specific area, (I have been told that their permit only allows them to operate within a few city blocks here in Oakland.) the dispensaries do their best to run a very smooth operation. Our former tenant  kept their business immaculately clean and employed both an advanced security system as well as a traditional security guard. I have been told that because the business is still illegal in the eyes of the Federal government, many dispensaries and growing operations operate on a cash basis, hence the need for all the security. Despite the additional risk, the dispensary was an overall good tenant. They knew the stigma as well as the limitations associated with their business, so we, as landlords, were well compensated for taking on this type of tenant. The tenant always paid their rent on time and, although their busiest hours were in the evening, the dispensary took care of any and all of their own issues, without having to involve us. I suppose that our property's location in a primarily industrial neighborhood helped, as none of the neighbors seemed to really care about the nightly comings and goings.

3) Even though our dispensary tenant eventually moved out, our property was very adaptable and we were able to rent it to a true industrial tenant not long after the previous tenant vacated. Although this is my own opinion, I would think that it's pretty important for investors and landlords to consider other possible uses for a property.  After all, it's impossible to predict the future and it could very well be the case that marijuana, even medical marijuana, remains a federally-illegal business for a while, so it's always best to have a backup in case things turn ugly. 

Maybe one day marijuana will receive federal recognition for its medicinal purposes... or maybe not. But either way, we as landlords and potential landlords can't take on the risk of having any medical marijuana-related tenants without knowing all of our facts. I hope that helps, and good luck with your new venture!

Hi @Danielle Price

I'm a real estate investor here in the East Bay. Like you, I am also a California native (lived most of my life in Northern California, but spent a few years down south for school).  I feel that the most important overall lessons they taught me were to:

1) Live a frugal life, because it doesn't matter what your income is, if you can't save anything, you won't be able to invest anything. Whether it's bringing your own lunch to work to save a few bucks from eating out or wearing those ripped jeans for just a little bit longer (hey, ripped jeans are in style now anyways!), the old saying is right in that "A penny saved is a penny earned." Plus, it's a lot easier to start out living a frugal life and then slowly upgrade when you are collecting rental income than to start out with an extravagant life and try to cut back. 

2) Do not get discouraged and never give up. Your first property won't be easy. Especially in California, you could get outbid, you could end up with a non-paying tenant, you could have a maintenance disaster, and the list goes on.  That first property may even be a fixer-upper that drains your finances. Whatever the case, your first property will likely be your most difficult. So it is very important to remember to never give up and to never lose hope that you can turn the situation around. Because if there's a will, there's a way.

3) Don't be afraid of hard work. My very first job out of college was at a call center. Even though the job itself was not easy, I still took every opportunity I got to do overtime. There were some weeks where I would work almost the whole week through, with no proper weekend. That hard work paid off though: all that overtime helped me to be able to buy and renovate my first investment property. And that first property helped me to become a real estate investor, which eventually led me to a rewarding career in real estate. But all of this would have taken me so much longer to accomplish, had I not been so willing to work. So when given a choice, always remember that hard work will pay off.  

I hope this advice is helpful to you and thank you for reaching out! 

P.S. I would be careful with those "real estate gurus" and their paid courses. I've been to a few of the informational sessions they hold and in all honesty, you could easily get the information they offer, plus more, from a combination of BiggerPockets and real estate courses at a local community college. Good luck on your future ventures!

Hi @Ricardo S.

First off, let me say that I bought my first investment property when I was around your age, and I was also living with my parents at that time too. There's really no shame in that when you have bigger goals in mind!

You definitely have the right mindset and seem to be on a good track. I also was working at a job that offered overtime back then and even though it was entry-level, I worked as much overtime as I could get; again, I was keeping the long-term goal in mind. 

Just keep your eyes on the prize and do your best! I would agree that paying off debt, especially while learning and getting educated on investing and real estate (like you are doing here!) is a good start. Good luck and don't be afraid to reach out if you ever need anything!