All Forum Posts by: Marcy Moyer

Ratesh, 800K in San Jose gets you an older home in Alum Rock right now and a newer home in Gilroy. It no longer will get you a single family home in Blossom Valley. It will get you a condo in San Jose, but possibly not 2 bedrooms in downtown. The reason I like Morgan Hill Gilroy right now is because I believe that there is a really great chance for appreciation as other areas south of downtown San Jose have already gotten unaffordable and the inventory is so low. Another great area for rental is Santa Cruz. The prices are lower than Silicon Valley and the rents as high with a vacancy rate of 1.67%.

For most properties in the Bay Area you need to have 40% down to neutralize your cash flow, but the more expensive the property the worse the cash flow for most property. Also, a four plex at 1.5 million is rare. I would suggest looking south, in a place like Morgan Hill/San Martin/Gilroy where the prices are more reasonable and appreciation set to go up as more tech companies keep moving further south. Santa Cruz county is another great place to invest. The vacancy rate is 1.67% and CAP rates higher than in the Silicon Valley.

Ratesh, I spend my life dealing with this. 95125 and 95126 zip codes, as well as downtown San Jose have appreciated 20% since June when Google made the announcement. The inventory is historically low and the competition unbelievable, often with 20 offers on everything for sale, South San Jose has increased almost as much but there are still some opportunities there. Blossom Valley is probably one of the better places for rental properties, if you can beat out other buyers. My belief is that Morgan Hill and Gilroy are the places to invest right now in the south bay. There is a lot of newer construction that makes for great rental properties under a million dollars. All the tech companies are going to downtown SJ which makes the commute from Morgan Hill to downtown no worse than the commute from South San Jose to Cupertino/Sunnyvale/Mountain was. The other place where there are good opportunities is Oakland in some of the more walkable neighborhoods like Temescal or NOBE. Millennials love to live there and homes are still relatively affordable for investors.

While I agree that you need an attorney, you can also call your title company who insured you title to the property to see if they can help. In the mean time I would ask the seller if there was ever a cancellation signed by both parties to give to the lawyer and title company.

Ratesh bolting after the fact, that is after a home is built, will cost about $250 per bolt, which is technically not a bolt, but a Simpson tie down. They are supposed to be no more than 6 feet apart along the perimeter foundation. You can add extra tie downs to homes that were built before the code said every 6 feet to make them more sturdy. Also, my engineer tells me that linear cracks along a concrete foundation should b repaired and that cost is about $1000 a linear foot. Finally older homes as well as hillside homes should have cripple walls braced. My feeling is that we know there will be an earthquake, possibly in our lifetimes and possibly in our neighborhood. My feeling is that I want my investments to be over protected against quakes so that they have the best chance to be standing after a large quake. That will make them more valuable than the homes that are damaged and potentially left vacant after a quake.