All Forum Posts by: Ramsin Jacob

Find a fixer, use the BRRRR method. Many opportunities in the Bay Area.

Find a deal and bring it to me. 

You're making a common misconception by thinking it is safe to go into a lower priced market like Modesto. With interest rates increasing, the people who are affected the most are those lower end buyers. Believe me, I have listings all throughout the Bay Area, from Oakland, to San Jose, to Redwood City, you name it. The more expensive the house, the more traffic I had. Wealthy buyers are not phased with interest rate hikes. Santa Cruz is not very expensive compared to the Bay Area. I have sold over $50m worth of fix/flips in the Bay Area. You need to just find a property with a large spread, minimal costs, since you are new in this business you need to find a house that only needs cosmetic repairs that'll take no longer than 2 months for you to complete and list on the market. Looks for areas with good schools. Inventory is extremely low right now, so if you find one 30% below ARV, jump on it.

No such thing.  Agents get paid when a deal closes.  But if you have some basic questions, reach out and I'll help when I have some time.  Agents are the consultants, that's the job, to advise, manage and negotiate. 

Find the deal directly, then find the investors.  Investors are easy to find.  The deal is the juice. 

Looks like majority of the comments are from out of area. I have multiple listings throughout the Bay Area currently, listing another this week. We haven't done much price reductions, in fact, we have increased prices and I am listing at high prices because every buyer will try to negotiate down right now regardless of what price you list at. With listing the price higher, instead of decreasing the price, we offer the buyer either/or a buy down of the rate or money towards closing costs. One of my listings just went under contract before NYE where the buyer was using an FHA loan, didn't have much at all to put down, the lender required a 4% credit from purchase price in order for this particular buyer to close the deal. We had a firm offer price on this particular listing, so the buyer offered us $25k above the listing price, even though the house was on market for multiple months. The buyer is using the "sellers money" from the fabricated price, and the buyer was able to do this because her loan amount was approved higher than our firm price. But really, this extra 4% that is "required" from sellers, is essentially coming from the lender. Same with another listing of mine that closed last month, we increased the price from $1.25m to $1.29m - the buyer came in with a FHA loan, they had barely any cash as well, their loan was 0 money down. We were on market for couple months, the agent was very desperate to get the deal, her clients loved the house, she asked what does the price need to be. I said write us $1.3m non-contingent and it's yours. Within a few hours that night, I had the offer in hand. Next day, I got a text saying they wanted to increase the purchase price by $2,000. First time I had that occur. A buyer wanting to increase the price. But they did so with the request of the seller buying and installing new washer and dryer in the house. The buyer essentially was leveraging the lender's loan funds towards buying them a washer and dryer, as it was disguised to be coming from the seller. There's a lot of ways to leverage money like this. Right now especially, I am seeing a lot of this. That is why as mentioned on my listings, we are not decreasing prices and since the inventory is very low with minimal comps, we have turn key remodeled homes going on market, we are setting the prices of what these homes are worth.

Sounds like you are already under contract, so it is too late to negotiate to have the property vacant at closing. I specialize with fix & flips, sold over $50m, my clients and I never waste time on properties with tenants. You are going to be in for a long haul of headaches. If you have a way to get out of this deal with your EMD, I would do so immediately. Unless, you are able to successfully negotiate a cash for keys deal with the tenants. I've done this before with $10k. People will try to get more out of you. It all comes down to your negotiating tactics. But if you can't them to to commit and sign to a cash for keys, then cancel the deal and don't go after properties with tenants moving forward.

Quote from @Yi Chung Chen:

that's correct, when I called in to talk to the city, they told me not to bother waiting for that program.  so I just submit as brand new permit.  
I did an ADU legalization.

when inspector first came out I explained the situation. 
that we basically converted our garage into an ADU during the start of covid without permits cause we just had a baby and parents coming into town to help out needed a place to stay, so we rushed the conversion and did it without permits, but we did have an architect and structural engineer do drawings for us.. So we asked the inspector what he needed us to open up. had to take off some siding, open up some holes in the drywall, etc.
it was a pain to do, but was good to do it right.

everything ended up working out and so we're good to go now :)
ADU is legally permitted, and rented out now for $2,900/mth :)

any other questions feel free to let me know!

 Do you have a direct contact info for who helped you out? 

Quote from @Saurabh Dey:

Hi, I am looking to buy a multi-family (my first one) in Bay Area. Can someone suggest which are good areas for appreciation and cash flow? My price range is between 1-1.5M. 

Thank you

Hate to break it to you, but in the Bay Area, it is one of the worst markets for cash flow.  Rarely will you find a property that will cash flow above your break even.  Majority of investors are focused on appreciation.  I recently sold a commercial multi-family deal in Berkeley which was over 6% cap rate.  That is extremely difficult to find in the Bay Area.  

Hello community, 

So I have been working with my current CPA within multiple businesses I've owned for the past 10 years.  My Real Estate business has taken off last few years and I am feeling like my current CPA is not very knowledgeable with tax saving strategies.  When I bring up the conversations/question, I get pretty much nothing informative.  

A few years ago, I leased a brand new car for business.  When the lease approached the maturity date, I decided to purchase the car outright instead of turning it back to the deal.  I paid $35k for the purchase.  I was expecting this to be a write off, hence why I leased the car to begin with.  Looking back on my previous years, it looks like the CPA did not include any of my lease payments in Section 179.  Now, he has not listed this full cost under section 179.  Everything that I have gathered from my own research, tells me that I should be able to deduct this full amount for the year it was purchased in.  Am I wrong?  Is my CPA wrong?  

I would appreciate any advice regarding this.   Also, if you have a CPA who knows how to deal with high net worth individuals in Real Estate, please let me know.  Thank you.