All Forum Posts by: Kevin Yang

@Manolo D. thanks for the response and let me clarify.  What I want is advice on  how the evaluation process is typically done.  One part of the process, I assume, includes a high level feasibility estimate.  I'm not an expert in Real Estate, but I am an expert an other areas in my professional career and find it hard to believe that there aren't experts that are able to take less than 30-60 min. to look at my property, regulatory restrictions, and give me ball park figures with an accuracy rate of ~80%.   I wouldn't expect this cost that much to do as someone who has experience and is moderately familiar with the area, real estate, development, etc.  should be able to do this, even with limited information. 

The more accurate the required estimate, the longer it'll take to research construction costs, limitations, etc.   However, I'm really only looking for rough estimates to assess feasibility. 

Then as I mentioned earlier, advice on the general process end to end for decision making purposes. 

Hope this makes sense.  

Sunny, 

Thanks for the quick feedback! 

The units next door are new, higher quality overall, and all are two bedroom/1 bath.

I believe our 2bedroom unit, after some improvements, can go for at least $2,500 though our current tenant has lived there 15 years with only small increases in rent (we've also been very lax on her - mistake on our part).    In terms of size, this unit is actually bigger as it's basically a small house with a yard.   The amenities are about the same, I believe. 

Thanks again and looking forward to more input! 

Best,

Kevin

Appreciate any advice here! 

In Sherman Oaks, California at a LAR-3 zone, I have a 7, 200 square foot lot with 3 units - one with 1 2 br/1bath and two with 1 br/1bath.  These are renting out at a total of 4.5k per month and am paying 2.5k per month for mortgage.  Net income is steady at around 1k.  To be honest, there's a lot of wasted space there and it's all single story.   I have over 400k equity built up for total value of at least 850k.  

Right next door to my complex is a slightly larger lot with a 7 unit building, each renting out for at least 2.5k with a total rental income of at least 17.5k per month.  

This makes me think I'm missing out on an opportunity to develop or at least assess development.  I do have some cash to invest and want to evaluate my options. 

However, I have no experience with development and am looking how to get advice on how to best calculate key indicators on making an investment decision. 

Can anyone help advise with the following? 

a) How to best find someone or research a way to evaluate development options including cost, etc. of developing an apartment building, given regulatory and other restrictions?  I'm looking to do this at a high level initially and low to zero cost (don't want to spend a ton of money on an architect when I just need to assess feasibility). 

b) After the above is done, how can I best evaluate, using key financial indicators, etc. to make decisions.   There's of course other options I can look into such as remodeling the current, 1031 exchange, and so on which also needs to be compared against later. 

Thanks for the help!