All Forum Posts by: Osazee Edebiri

@Osazee Edebiri I would highly recommend talking to an attorney that is familiar with the process. Others might say you can do it more economically on your own, but the way I view it is a lawyer is just part of doing business. One arbitrary way to think about it is how much more valuable would the place be to you if you were getting an extra $1,000 a month? $2,000 a month? Etc. The real way to do it is to look at comps :)

You need to be more creative than that, what I do can not/should not be posed on a open forum that is likely being monitored by welfare pimps and government agencies.

I will say that what you need to do is get them upset enough with their treatment that they either leave or stop paying rent. As soon as they stop paying rent they are on a downward spiral that you then escalate. They usually shoot themselves in the foot if you have protected yourself. 

One word of caution you need to be well informed of tenant rights to bend and skirt the law (not to be attempted by newbie or hobby landlords).

Depending on the tenant I have in some cases been forced to make their lives so miserable that they choose to move. It is the only way to keep rents current.

It's unfortunate that it is necessary to operate business this way but the government regulations sometime make it necessary due to the unacceptable financial environment they created.

In my jurisdiction long term tenants are simply not cost effective to keep. Ideally we need a turn over every 3 years to maintain market rent.

@Osazee Edebiri how much will the value of the property go up if you are able to bump rents? I had someone just last week talk to me about a 4 unit they have out in Oakland where buyouts probably make a ton of sense.

How many years did you NOT raise the rents? I am almost certain you can "bank" years that you do not increase rents however you cannot do a yearly increase more than 3 times the CPI for the year (2% till June 30th, so a 6% total increase) and no matter the CPI you cannot adjust rents >10% in any one year.

You could earthquake retrofit the building and that would increase your value plus allow you to adjust rental rates based on that so long as you don't use any public monies or Insurance to pad your costs. This could be a good tool to protect your investment and get the rental increase to offset the costs. Not gonna get you to market rates I'm sure but it is the idea that popped into my head! =)

It depends on how your rent controls work.

One part of my business is not only controlled with yearly increases but also increase limits during turn over. To get around the turn over restrictions I gave notice to all tenants raising rent to market and then grandfathered in a rent discount to there present rent. In theory this allows me to raise new tenants directly to market rent at turn over.

As for annual rent increases the only way to go above annual restrictions is through cap expenditures. Regrettably rent controls kill the business. Long term tenants are extremely undesirable and spending money to maintain the property is a waste of money.

can you owner occupy? How many units in your buildings? 

 I have purchased 3 properties in Oakland this year - total of 9 units this year.

Units. The first in March, then September, then November. All MLS deals.

I am not sure that you living in San Jose and owning a piece of property out there qualifies you to give out investment advice to those looking to invest in Sacramento.