All Forum Posts by: Ori Skloot

Josiah, very nicely done!   What a great accomplishment for yourself and for the neighborhood.   I love this.  

About Us

We are a small organization that manages 100+ apartments in the San Francisco Bay Area. We are seeking an administrative super multi-tasker to help with our operations and grow with our company.

Position Overview

Assisting with a wide range of daily tasks that may differ from day to day. Some of these tasks may have a tight deadline requiring 24 hour turn-around (such as creating a new lease) while other tasks may be longer-term projects. Flexible hours and partially remote work. Responsibilities shall include:

Administrative:

• Working with Appfolio and QBO to book receipts
• Advertising vacant units and scheduling open houses
• Maintaining lease renewals and creating new leases
• Maintaining and updating tenant and vendor contact information
• General administrative tasks

Tenant Interaction:

• Communicate with tenants regarding rent payments, late rent, notifications, etc.
• Collecting rent from buildings and bringing to office in Richmond
• Showing vacant apartments for open houses and collecting applications
• Helping with tenant lock-outs or emergency situations
• Assisting with tenant move-in: providing keys, showing parking, helping get set up, etc.

Maintenance Oversight:

• Ensuring that the property is clean and well maintained
• Annual apartment inspections
• Receiving tenant maintenance requests and conveying to maintenance staff
• Reporting to management when there are repairs or larger issues needed
• Meet with vendors on site as needed
• Assess and report any safety issues

Desired Experience and Skills:

• Fluent in English and strong verbal communication in Spanish
• Experience working with Microsoft Excel and QBO
• Available Mon-Fri for 20-40 hours per week. Available for 24-hour turn-around of urgent tasks.
• Prefer (but not required) experience working with Appfolio

Compensation

$15-25/hour. Pay commensurate with experience.

Assuming that you have enough land for each building to qualify for a lot split, this very well could be a good plan.  You're looking at 15-20k and about 8-12 months to get through the entire process, so keep that in mind.  There are a few good companies in the Bay Area that specialize in lot splits.  First thing you need to do is get a tentative parcel map which costs around $7500 

I have worked with Bornstein and Bornstein Law Group and they were successful in our case.

On June 3rd: "the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously for seven-story buildings — which could rise to 12 stories with a state density bonus —at the North Berkeley and Ashby BART stations. The vote also endorsed up to 2,400 homes, but with the state incentive that could turn into up to 3,600 units at the two stations."  SF Chronicle Story

This is a hugely polarized decision, but I don't want to get into the right or wrong of it.   I would like to know your opinion on what you think will happen to home values in the immediate surrounding area of North and South Berkeley Bart.

One argument could be made that home values will be adversely affected because a single-family dwelling is less appealing next to a massive high-rise building.   On the other hand, the development will have nice amenities, green space, shops, coffee shops, etc. which will be attractive to some folks.    South Berkeley Bart is already surrounded by higher buildings so maybe the development won't stick out as much and the area will be better off?

Anyone have any historical data or case studies that might give insight into what we can expect?   Or, if you have a theory on what could happen let's hear it.

Thanks,

Ori

If you can do some of the work yourself then more power to you!  FYI: an average price for an 8-foot granite slab at Granite Expo today is $450.  ;)   Good luck whichever you go.  

David -

I'll offer a different viewpoint. I think the returns you will get on short term renting from an ADU in San Rafael (assuming that you aren't restricted by the local government as mentioned in the other posts) very well might beat the cashflow you will get, even when using leverage, of investing the $800k in purchasing another property in Marin or the surrounding area. Of course, you could take that money an invest in the mid-west and get much better returns, but that's a whole other discourse. I agree that running a STR is a whole different game than long term rentals, but also agree with you that if you are living on the property it will make it much easier and more likely to succeed. If you set up a good system, and have someone reliable to do the cleaning, and you are prepared to do a little extra work, then it can pay off very nicely.

Regarding the line of credit. Some banks allow you to get a HELOC or LOC and then fix the rate for a number of years. I just saw one offer that allowed a LOC to be fixed for 10 years (I'll see if I can find which bank that was). So that might be a good solution for you.

IMHO, the big wrench in your plans is your estimated cost of construction.  I'm a general contractor and have a good sense of building costs in the Bay Area.  $400k for 1200 square foot new build that requires sprinklers is not realistic.  I would budget a minimum of $400/sqft and more likely $450+/sqft.  For your underwriting I would be conservative and make sure that the numbers work even with the top end of construction costs.   

@Cody L. Congrats Cody! That must have been a big lift. I think a little bragging is well deserved when hauling in a whale of a deal like this on your own.

@Chinki Kumari thanks for bringing this up, I myself have been wondering the same thing.  I am a licensed real estate broker and I own 50+ doors in the Bay Area that I self-manage.  I also own a construction company so I have employees on hand whenever I have a maintenance issue or capex.   That said, I think that doing the property management is the worst part of real estate investing.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that I am doing it in-house as the savings and quality of work are worth it to me.  But I don't think I want to do it for someone else and deal with tenant issues and PITA property owners.  It's tempting because I have all the systems in place, but then how much money will I make running a business and more employees vs. just continuing with finding passive real estate investment opportunities...I'm not sure it's worth the trade off.    I do know a guy in Berkeley who owns a lot of properties himself and has a property management company that runs his own and other people's properties.  I've glimpsed at his operations and boy it seems super stressful.   Not sure if any of that helps, but just my rambling thoughts on the matter.