All Forum Posts by: Sean Walton

Many if not all cities have a zoning map. Try searching the planning department website. Also try looking for a GIS map (maybe on the county website) which should pull up a lot of useful information including zoning. Once you know the zoning, lot size and dimensions you can figure roughly what can be built. There are tons of other issues that take books to cover. You may want to partner with someone whose done it or start small with a home addition. At this point in the cycle and really always you should be trying to buy under market value. The nice thing about development is you can pay “market value” for a SFR but if it is zoned for commercial or mixed use you have a good deal. The reason I bring this up is you may need to contact 100 owners before someone is willing to sell at a price that works with your pro-forma

Thanks for the tag @Chris Mason

@John Lee I'm by no means a lawyer and this is not legal advice but I've heard of some people putting the property into a trust and then putting an LLC as the beneficiary of the trust. As I understand the trust set up is usually seen as estate planning and ignored by the bank and because the LLC being put as the beneficiary of the trust is not really public knowledge unless the bank really goes looking. I've not done this and am not an expert so proceed at your own risk.

As others have mentioned if this is your first property and you don't have a lot of other assets to protect you may want to just get an umbrella policy for now and wait on the LLC for a while.

I would recommend somewhere putting down in writing what you and your brother's responsibilities are in this arrangement and how it is to be dissolved before anything goes wrong. It is easier now to be safe than get in a difficult conversation later about what one is owed if they want out.

 This is a very casual meetup of all types of investors and experience levels. I learn great things at every meeting

There will not be any pitching of anything by the hosts.

Just come with some business cards and get to know people you chat with on BP

Thanks to @Eduardo Zepeda  for securing the venue and co-hosting

Please also join our meetup to make sure you get notifications 

https://www.meetup.com/SF-Real-Estate-open-format

Hope to see friends and past attendees: @Mark Pedroza, @Puran Zach Grewal, @Ethan Cooke, @Ralph Forde, @Jason L. , @Patrick Suzuki , @Jared Newman, @Nicole Petrak , @Ali Goss @Gagan Chawla @Matthew Ryan @Matt Sanford @Atish Shah @Sasha Josephs @MarieChele Porter @Tim McGarvey @David Kanter @Saikat Bhadra @Kevin Q. @Ariel Smith @Jonathan Gonzalez @Ori Skloot @Zander Eng @Dana Dunford @so young lee @Chris Mason @Sherwin Gonzales @Bobby Sharma @Account Closed

I do 30 day minimums so pricing depends on season and how close it is to being vacant.

I use a heavy-duty lock box on the gas meter out front since it is a condo building a smart lock on the entrance door still needs to be negotiated with neighbors.

It was surprising to me that people seem to prefer or at least not mind the lockbox since they don't have to arrive at a specific time

@Ethan Cooke sorry you missed it. Life has been pretty crazy and I need to be better about reaching out to friends via email and text. We have a meetup group that will send out email reminders when we create events and a day before https://www.meetup.com/SF-Real-Estate-open-format/

Also, we are going to make it the 1st Wednesday of every month from now on so mark your calendar.

@Elian Stuff sorry parking is tricky in the area but most people like that it isn't too far from BART maybe you can park at a BART station next time. Or park in a cheaper area and take an Uber or Lyft up the hill. Hope to see you next time.

Originally posted by @Elian Stuff:

SF has limited parking,   where is a safe place, and easy place to park ?

 There is a lot a few doors down 569 Post St, San Francisco, CA 94102

Not sure about the price but this is near Union Square so probably not cheap. The Area of the hotel and East is pretty safe but never leave any items out in your car and visible even in garages. There is a subterranean garage under union square as well. 

Originally posted by @Sean Walton:

Hi All, apologies if you already saw this or got the notification but someone said they didn't get the tagged notification so I'm going to go through and tag again manually instead of copy paste. Also if you want to be tagged for future events feel free to send me a colleague request

@Eduardo Zepeda, @Puran Zach Grewal, @Ethan Cooke ,  @Ralph Forde,  @Jason L., @Patrick Suzuki, @Jared Newman, @Nicole Petrak , @Ali Goss , @Gagan Chawla , @Matthew Ryan, @Matt Sanford , @Atish Shah , @Sasha Josephs, @MarieChele Porter , @Tim McGarvey, @David Kanter, @Saikat Bhadra, @Kevin Q., @Ariel Smith, @Jonathan Gonzalez, @Ori Skloot, @Zander Eng, @So Young Lee, @Dana Dunford, @Chris Mason, @Sherwin Gonzales, @Andrew Clemenza, @Bobby Sharma, @Account Closed

 I look forward to seeing everyone tonight!

@Roger Beaman Everyone has a different definition see below.

I guess my point is the higher end the property and clientele the higher level of service that is expected and should be provided so that they renew their lease. But if $50 to $75/mo means a lot to a tenant and they are willing to take the trash out and it works with your cashflow numbers it will avoid those pesky fines and turnover/vacancy which is probably much more costly

I found this one from this string helpful https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/145...

"A" Tenant = Professionals with good credit, pays on time and takes care of the place. They could clearly be homeowners but they just decide to rent.

"B" Tenant = Decent Credit, Pays on time most of the time, doesn't completely destroy the house

"C" Tenant = Bumpy Credit, When rent is due you're biting your nails wondering if the payment is coming, you have to occasionally keep them in line and they require more interaction

"D" Tenant = No thanks......

There’s a new book by James Petty AIA on self initiating work. I just got it so I’ll add onto this post once I get through it. Seems like a lot of concrete steps and how to analyze deals peppered with interviews with active A+Ds he also has a good website on the topic. There is a documentary about John Portman for free on Amazon prime that I enjoyed a lot. http://guerrilladev.co/ has some great project developed by the firm and pro forma excel files are on the website. The principal Kevin Cavanaugh has been interviewed on Sever podcast and knows his stuff

Not sure if this is an option but in SF you can pay extra to have the trash company go in your gate or garage to get the trash. What class of tenants are these? If B- and below maybe you can offer one tenant lower rent to do it. If higher end tenants maybe hire a local kid or task rabbit