All Forum Posts by: J. Martin

Bill, Jessica, and Andy, it will be nice to hear more about what you are all on working on. Only

a limited chance to chat last time..

Joe C, hopefully you'll be able to make it next time. Andy was thinking about starting something on Saturdays if that works for some who aren't able to attend..

Amit, glad you could make this one and look forward to meeting you in person!

Last but not least, welcome to BP and to the East Bay Meetup group Tiffany! Should be a good time! Looking forward to meeting you and hearing about your goals.

You guys travel too much! (but at least you get the points! *and the golden suitcase..?)

I'll have to catch you next time Johnson.

Hi Amy,

I'm afraid I can't give you any legal or tax advice, but I just wanted to make sure you are aware of the rent control, tenant protections, and general climate regarding landlords in Berkeley. Search online or ask your boyfriend for the details. SFR may be exempt from rent control, but has just cause eviction protections. Be sure to check.

You can check with a legal professional regarding the property management. But I think "work" is generally in regards to compensation for services rendered. No one is paying you a salary or hourly rate to fix your house. And I think there is a distinction between "active" earned income for your work, and "passive" income generated by investments. But I think you do have the right to maintain your house.. Maybe have your boyfriend collect your rent for you if you are worried about crossing any lines.. Can't help with the rest, unfortunately..

Not sure if Berkeley or Toronto is more expensive, but I know they're both up there! I own rental units about 5 miles north of Berkeley, and use redfin.com to search for properties. Good luck!

@Account Closed , if you get the OK, it would be great to meet you. It looks like you'd be the most prolific BP member at the meeting if you were able to attend.. I agree traffic will not be great, so I tried to make it close to public transit.. Should be a great group.

Time to jump on the BART bandwagon! You can relax, read, not pay attention to the honking idiot behind you.. No traffic.. You can drive to the nearest BART station (Fremont?) and trains usually leave every 10/15 minutes. You can get public transit directions door to door for anywhere, anytime in the Bay at www.511.org . Up until last month, I hadn't never tried blood sausage nor did I know what it was (aka black pudding), until I saw it served all over Spain. But I found that I quite liked a lot of them.. Never know what you might enjoy until you get stuck with it!

Then we'll meet at The Trappist bar on Tues, 12/10/13 near 12th St BART in Oakland at 6:30PM!

@Dee Cross , sorry you can't make it this time.. Next time, we can shoot for Wednesday instead.

@Michaela Graham , definitely interested in hearing more about GA and how everything pencils out.. I think you might make a killing on the way up! Way to get in low! How I long for the day when I can (semi) retire on my passive income.. ;) btw, I saw someone from the east coast on a bay area forum who was trying to buy property - specifically in Hercules - to my surprise. Don't know if you're interested in working on a deal out here, but search Hercules and you'll find him.. (On an East Bay Meetup post I think..)

ps. I saw your post about getting up early, and I'm suspicious of any friend that would try to wake me up so early in the morning! lol

@Troy Fisher Had the pleasure of chatting the other night at the SF meetup, and hope you can make it out to this one too.. (but I know it's a ways!!)

@Jaren Barnes , it was also a pleasure, and let me know if you want to turn your marketing machine on my area of Richmond! If you can bring me an off-market 2-4 unit property in the areas I roam with a GRM below 8 (or closer to 7!.. more for you!..), I'm willing to put some money in your pocket.. I don't have time to prospect for off-market properties and just buying on-market for the last 2.

@Arron Sweeney , got to chat with you a bit in messaging, but looking forward to hearing more about your plans..

@Chris Music , haven't had the pleasure yet.. but soon will!

@Denise Alberto , thanks for the recommendation on the contractor (maybe test on my next project), and interested to hearing more about what you're up to.

@Sam Magi , will be nice to meet face-to-face after some messaging..

Looking forward to meeting/seeing all of you! Any and all are welcome, so anyone else, come out and say hi!

@Account Closed ..

We're having an EAST BAY MEETUP! Tues, Dec 10 @ 6:30PM at the Trappist Bar near 12th St Oakland BART. I'm hoping @Andy Kaufman is coming too!! I know some of you are on the peninsula. I was hoping by getting it a little further south and right by public transit, it might make it easier. So if you can drive to a nearby BART station or want to take Caltrain then BART over, please come join us!

Minh, I saw you had some questions about the format for the last meetup. I plan on keeping it open to whatever people want to discuss. A few of us have already met each other at an SF meetup, so I'm happy to keep it open to talk about areas we're investing, strategies, deals or partnerships, or whatever folks are most interested in.. There will be no "speaker." Please come out and join us if you can!

Post on the forum in the link if you all can make it out! It looks like about 7 people want to come so far after a day on the forum..

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/86/topics/106912-east-bay-meetup---dec-10-in-oakland

Hi @Joe C. , @Bob Pohl , and @Kyle Zaylor ,

We're having an EAST BAY MEETUP! Tues, Dec 10 @ 6:30PM at the Trappist Bar near 12th St Oakland BART. I'm hoping @Andy Kaufman is coming too!! Post on the forum in the link if you all can make it out!

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/86/topics/106912-east-bay-meetup---dec-10-in-oakland

EAST BAY BP MEETUP!!!

Tues Dec 10th @ 6:30PM at The Trappist bar, near 12th St Bart in Oakland.

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/86/topics/106912-east-bay-meetup---dec-10-in-oakland

And yes, the wonderful San Francisco folks I'm referring to are all of you :)

Just going to tag some names in case anyone wants to come. It's only an 11min BART ride from Embarcadero!! Come on out and have a beer and chat with your BP brethren! (used for alliterative purposes only gals!) If you're coming, please post on the forum for the East Bay meetup in the link, rather than here, so everyone can know who's coming. Looks like about 7 people so far.. We'll mingle around some more too this time, and I'm feeling like a superdork, I'll bring some name tags!

Thanks again to @Sarah Lam for arranging the SF meeting and bringing us all in touch! ;) Thanks Sarah!

@Jessica Yau a Yau

@Ralph E. E.

@Andrew N. Nguyen

@Kris Lai

@Sarah Lam

@Amit M. , your expenses have been phenomenally low! I'd definitely expect more in the future! That's great though. San Francisco for sure will skew to the low side of the expense/revenue ratio and the expense/sqft should be low for a while if the units are renovated, good tenants, good exterior of building, roof, wiring & plumbing not 60 yrs old, etc. (happens a lot in SF!)

Regarding that Alameda property, I can't speak knowledgeably about the property, because I don't know what rents I could get out there.. Approaching a 14 GRM by the selller's estimates though, so I would want quite a bit of upside. Plus Alameda is a liquification zone for earthquakes I believe, and they have a "rent mediation board" for substantially increased rents (although not explicit rent control and not sure how often invoked.)

I'm a big fan of Oakland, but prices are getting hot. And I don't like rent control. I'm more familiar with the West Oakland, Lake Merritt/Downtown, and North Oakland areas. Don't know much about south/east of there or the hills..

Glad you can make it in East Bay. I'm going to post it on this forum also right now..

Hi @Scott C.

This is a tough question, and will start with what I hear every day at work: it depends!!! Ned is spot on with what they do on HOA's (search for HOA reserve estimates on google) - but is missing one point- you also have to estimate what point in the life cycle the items currently are. The older and crappier the building/roof/interiors/appliances, the more you need. In other words, if you have a beat-up roof on one of your properties, electrical wiring from the 1940's on another, and you can see soft spots of wood rot around windows and downspouts of the other, I would want to have a lot. Roof= $7-10k in 3-5 years, electrical=$20-25K in 3-5 years. Wood rot = $5-10K in 1-2 years. I might want to have $20-25K or so today and saving at a brisk pace. If I did substantial rehab at purchase, fixed everything, 7-yr old roof, newer appliances/AC, built in 1980's, no wood rot. Maybe $5-10k and saving at a decent pace.. A little cushion over any immediate surprises if they come due more quickly than you expected..

I don't do a full-blown "precise" calculation of the years for everything on my properties (4plex & 2 SFR's). Here's a few major points of consideration that will point you in whether it should be on the thin side or fatter. Start with the big stuff. These will be the biggest "lumps" that you should plan for..

How much deferred maintenance is on the building? (Wood rot, termites) How old is the building? (need new electric? plumbing?) How does the roof look? AC units, appliances, heating system works well and not about to bunk out? Are you planning on doing upgrades/remodel when a tenant moves out? How much excess cash flow do you have coming in on a monthly basis? How much access to financing sources (family borrowing, credit cards, HELOC etc.) do you have? What is your cash flow like?

The more access you have, the less I would sweat having every last dime for every contingency. Same with CF. If you have $4K in free cash flow coming in every month, I wouldn't be as worried about having every dime, because you can make it up quickly. If you're scraping by, I would want to have everything I need for repairs, plus a big cushion. I think a HELOC may be a good product for you if you have a decent amount of equity and qualify. MOST of the time, it's there like cash. But you don't have to let it sit idle and you only pay while it's outstanding. Maybe can "replace" some of your liquid cash if you have lots of equity and already set up, w/ a checkbook. And the more units you have, the more likely you may be able to be to get a more predictable rolling average of expenses. The expenses might be a bit "lumpier" when you just have a few..

Good luck!!