All Forum Posts by: Negar P.

Hi all,

My rental property is located in Orange County, CA. It is a 2 bed 2.5 bath that would go for $3100 per month in this market. This is the first time I am trying to rent it out though and I am finding it hard to find a tenant/family whose income is 3 times the rent. That would mean the renter should make $9300 per month in net pay, right? For example, right now I have an application from a single mom with two kids. She makes a little more than $6000 per month. She is a nurse at a local hospital with 703 credit score. So I guess other than the income she would make a good tenant.

I wonder if the "income 3 times rent" is true for markets like Southern California? Also would appreciate any other tips you may have for a first time landlord in this market

@Kyle J. Thank you Kyle. Will see what we can do.

@Bill Brandt Thanks. It is not in an HOA though.

@Kyle J. This is in Mission Viejo, CA and the city says that any changes to the exterior of the house will need permission from the adjacent neighbor. The house is a single family and is zoned as such, however the plan is in a way that we can rent out a studio on one side and a two bed 1 bath on the other and live in the middle section (separated from the other two by internal doors). The plan for the inside is already approved by the city conditional on the neighbors signing they are ok with the change to the exterior. The other neighbor on the other side has already signed, however the neighbor on the side with the sliding door is giving us a hard time.

Hi all,

We recently closed on our first deal in California. We are planning to use it as a house hack by renting out two sections of the house and living in the third one (huge single family home)

We want to change a window to a sliding door on one side of the house to create a separate entrance. The neighbor on that side is saying he would only sign the city forms if we write a letter for him and sign that we will never use the house as a business! He specifically mentioned elder care, etc.

Of course we are not planning to do such things in the near future but who knows about later on. As an investor, I don't want to put my future in the hands of somebody else.

This is in California. Is a letter like this even legal or enforceable?

Thanks guys for your help.

@Leo Chun Thank you for your response :) 

We have talked with only one other neighbor so far, she said the angry guy has caused issues and nuisances for everyone in the tract. Also the seller of our property had put down in his disclosure that there had been some nuisances and back and forth between the angry guy and the other neighbors including our seller over him parking many vans, etc. We didn't think too much into this because we thought we won't care about his vans... however, it seems like he is just an uneasy person in general. It seems like he doesn't even want to speak with us (tries to cut the conversation short as much as possible or avoid it)

I think it is a great idea to talk to the other neighbors, they may know him more and be able to help

Hi everyone,

We recently closed on our first deal! I am so excited about that! It is located in California and is going to be a house hack where we rent out two sections of the property (a huge single family house) and live in the third section. We have already submitted our plan to the city and it is ready for approval conditional on the approval of our adjacent neighbors. We are going to change a window to a sliding door on one side and add a french door to the opposite side of the property. The neighbor on the french door side has already signed the city form, however the other neighbor (on the side of the sliding door) doesn't want to sign the form. His reason is that he works at night and sleeps during the day and his bedroom is right where the sliding door is going to be, so he doesn't want people to use the door while he is asleep! This neighbor seems like an always angry person. He has already caused a lot of issues for us in the few weeks we have closed on the property including calling the city to stop work, yelling at our contractors for parking in front of our house (their car had gone a tiny bit in front of the neighbor's driveway), etc. He is also very suspicious... parks very large vans (about 4 to 6 at a time) in front of his property and on his driveway to cover the house, has cameras everywhere, is hanging cloths from his patio cover so no one can see the inside of the house, etc. Do you guys know how we can get this person's approval? Any suggestions on how to approach an angry suspicious person in general?

BTW, We haven't mentioned anything about our house hacking plan to the neighbors.

@Katie L. Great! Could you send me the names? Both from San Diego and OC. Thanks.

Hi all,

My husband and I just closed on our first investment deal! We are going to renovate the property before moving in and continuing our plans to house hack. Meanwhile, we'd like to meet with a real estate CPA to set up our accounts correctly for the properties we own (with this one there will be 2). We also have questions on how to pay the least amount of interest on our HELOC without getting our personal and business transactions mixed (to avoid making tax filing a nightmare!).

Can you guys let me know if you know of a great real estate CPA for this purpose? I'd appreciate it.

Thank you Mike!