All Forum Posts by: Jay Dimacali

Hi Samira. I'm in the Valley also.  When you get something together for investors add me in.  Thanks!

@Anthony Marshall

Hi Anthony. I'm in the valley myself (Granada Hills) so I know what you're talking about. The advice you're getting now is good. My two cents is this as I'm in the middle of building an ADU out of a garage with my family myself right now.

- work with a good planner/architect because you can't even go into the planning office and there are a bunch of details you'll have to learn on the fly. The money you pay for someone else to deal with the headaches and getting the permits is worth the money

- I'd recommend getting a good general contractor to handle the job for you. You work a full time job like me so having someone you can trust to build the job will help

- this part I'm dealing with right now. I rented a house out and told the tenants that my family was building out the ADU with the garage so it would be gone. I told them it would be large and take up most of the yard. They said okay and I wrote the garage was going to be out of the lease. I didn't put down the loss of the yard (my mistake!) so now I'm going through problems with that and the whole thing is delayed. Put everything in writing! And fence off the area you're going to take away so anyone in the house knows what they're going to lose

Good luck!

Legal question about building an ADU:

Question for everybody out there. I've got a tenant who is renting a house that I own in the City of LA. The tenants were told before moving in that there was an ADU going to be built which would take the majority of their backyard and they signed a rental agreement knowing that they would not have the garage. I screwed up that I didn't put in writing that the majority of the back yard was going to be taken for the building of the ADU but now that the plans and permits have been approved the tenants are balking and saying they don't want the ADU built because they're going to lose the majority of their yard. From contractor and Apartment associations from who I got the rental agreement I'm told that it's my legal right to start building. I totally agree with them but now my concern is that the tenants will go with the whole 'I got coronavirus issues, I can't pay the rent, and now I'm going to stay in your place for free.' They already used the 'I have coronavirus related issues to pay rent late' by the way. I kind of figured that's one of the worst-case scenarios. Does anyone have any experience dealing with this kind of issue or do you know any law firm that would be able to deal with this kind of situation? Thanks in advance!

@Bryce Stclair nice to hear you took action and succeeded. Congrats!

@Nitit Chartuprayoon

I try to go for the worse house in the best area I can get. If the city is good overall that's even better. If the city is an upward trend in improvement then you'll probably be okay in the long run. Biggest factor is that the numbers have to make sense the moment you close escrow.

@Nitit Chartuprayoon

You said that you worked at a naval base. I don't know if you're actually in the military but have you looked into getting one of the VA loans? The terms on those loans are usually really good. And I'd have to agree that a good house in a good location like others have said is very important. You can change the house but you can't change the area. I wouldn't worry so much about schools because if the parents really wanted a good school they would send their kids to a private school anyway.

@David Iniguez  Hi David.  I PM you to see if you got any updates.  

@Brandon Carlson in the end it was when I did a forbearance I just wanted to hold on to the money that messed me up

Hello BiggerPockets community. I'm looking to build an Adu at my place in the San Fernando Valley. I already have my plans in plan check but now my biggest problem is getting funding. Coronavirus has screwed up my cash out refi so I'm left scrambling trying to find some funding to get my deal off the ground. With the current environment I know it's going to be hard but I am just curious to see if anybody knows of any grants from the city of Los Angeles or the state of California (I know that's a long shot.) Or if there's any low-cost loans that the state or the city is providing now which might be more plausible and possibly happening. If you know anything please share. Thanks!

Hello Bigger Pockets community. Just curious to see if anybody has heard of Homestead for building an ADU. https://www.homestead.is/ from their website it looks like you build an Adu with them or rather they handle all the building and financing. The catch is that you have to split your rent money for I don't know how many years so that they will obviously make a profit in the end. From the website it looks like they only started in 2018. I wouldn't personally go with them myself but I'm just curious if anybody out there has heard of them or knows anybody that's worked with them and how the experience was.