All Forum Posts by: Jerome Kaidor

    Amen to that!  Especially for multifamily/commercial loans.  Every year, the lender requires a detailed report showing the performance of the property, the financial statement of the borrower, and the borrower's tax return.  

   Actually doing the payments for me is not that big a deal.  I have started extensively using my bank's bill pay feature.  It has been an enormous time saver.  Including logging in, navigating, scanning in the mortgage statement, entering the transaction into my bookkeeping software - I can pay a mortgage in about 5 minutes.  

 Yup, there actually is.  Multiple apps.  Maybe hundreds.  I just did a google search.

 We started in 1996 with a fourplex.  My wife dragged me in kicking & screaming.  She wanted a tax writoff.   I whined that ( back then ) you could make 15-20% in a mutual fund, without anybody calling you about upchucking toilets. 

By 2001 the high-tech world was not looking good, and the fourplex was just cranking  along making money.   So we refinanced the fourplex - and also our house - and bought the 8 unit building.  Then as few years later, we refinanced our house and IIRC the fourplex - and bought the 52 units.  Then in 2006 we refinanced the 52 units and bought the 20-unit complex.

 Two apartment complexes, one 52-units the other 20-units.  A 13-unit apartment building.

An 8-unit apartment building. I have never gotten into SFR investing. Here in the SF Bay Area, the numbers never made sense to me.

Wow.  Congrats on landing that good deal.  And with FIVE CHILDREN!

I pretty much know what that entails.  I have a pair of two-year-old twins myself.  And - since I don't work a W2 job, I am the stay-at-home dad.  Mommie goes to work at 5:00 in the morning and comes back around 2:30 and I have the Duty till she gets home.   Meanwhile I also manage our 93 units - I do payroll, marketing, pay bills, etc etc ETC.

I tell people I have two jobs.  The twins are the BIG job, and the properties are the little job.

I have been inspired to do everything and anything to streamline the business.  I keep a paper-free office because I don't have the luxury of a file cabinet ( the Twins would have taken it apart ).   So I bought a high-end desktop scanner, and every piece of paper gets scanned and discarded into the shredder queue.  This of course led to an increase in the value of my computer data, which is now protected by layers of paranoid backup.

 Doing the payroll - used to be an 8-hour ordeal.  Until I wrote software to shrink it down to about an hour.  I also wrote software to automate keeping rental payments ledgers - and push it out to my on-site staff.  Who do a much better job at it than I ever did.

Now if I could just automate potty training....

                     - Jerry Kaidor

 Or maybe not.  The link you quote points to info about the City of Oakland rent control ordinance, which AFAIK is about *residential* rentals.  The original poster was talking about a retail ( business ) lease, which I do not think is subject to that ordinance.

  So it comes down to a matter of contract law - governed by the text of the rental contract.  It's entirely possible that the contract defines the rent - and the yearly increases - in such detail that an actual notice letter is not required.  And that the rent is what it is, and the prior owner was simply not enforcing it.  Might be worth a consult with a lawyer.

Had a serious effect on our operations.  We own apartment complexes in Fresno & Stockton CA.  In 2008, like by magic, the phone just stopped ringing.  All the sharpies who were buying houses to flip couldn't flip them.  So they rented them out instead.  Most of our Section 8 tenants went away because they could now rent a house on their voucher.  Some of them actually came back to our Fresno complex because 1.  They discovered that renting a house was more expensive because you have to pay water-sewer-garbage.  2.  We have working central AC, which is a big deal in the Valley.

We had to lower our rents.  Luckily, we had a REALLY good adjustable rate mortgage, and it went down enough to cover the difference, and we still made money.

I find Intuit in general to be a really shady outfit.  I wouldn't trust them any further than I could throw'em.  I do use Quicken but am constantly looking for ways to use it less - or not use it at all.  I use my own homemade software for all of my accounts receivables.

A couple of examples - when Quicken "prints" a check, it does not transmit the check number.  Why?  Because Intuit makes WAY too much money selling preprinted checks.

Another example - every few years, the download feature on my Quicken dies, and I have to upgrade ( and pay them $$ ) to get it back.

Intuit bites the hands that feed it.

The thing that annoys me about Hayward multifamily is that people price it per market rents when their actuals are way behind.  Apparently, there is no shortage of buyers who don't know that you can only catch up at 5% a year per the Hayward Rent Stabilization Ordinance.

Hayward?  Hayward is already gentrifying.  A few years ago, I had trouble renting 2-bedroom apartments in Hayward for $1100 or $1200.  Now, I can easily get $1500. In fact, even $1500 is apparently low.   I put one on craigslist and got 50 emails in a couple days!  Thanks to the San Mateo bridge, Hayward is easily accessible to mid-wage earners who can NOT afford the Peninsula.

 One fly in Hayward's ointment is Rent Control.  But that doesn't apply to new construction.  And the rent control here is 5% a year.  It looks like I'll be able to do 5% rent increases every year for the next decade.  And 5% is a substantial increase.   If you have50% expenses, then a 5% increase in gross yields a 10% increase in cash flow.