All Forum Posts 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

@Chris Mason is helping a friend of mine buy a un-warrantable condo from me in Vallejo. I would talk to him. 

I use CBIZ and haven’t had any issues. They are always quick to pick up calls and give answers or call back very soon. My mortgage company did not mail the escrow check in a timely manner and they called to let me know I should look into it. I have thankfully not needed to make a claim so can’t speak to that. Haven’t heard or Proper before but maybe I should compare them to CBIZ myself

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 if tags don't work 

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 Lefley , @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 Vincent , @Jonathan Gonzalez , @Ori Skloot , @Zander Eng , @So Young Lee , @Dana Dunford , @Chris Mason , @Sherwin Gonzales , @Andrew Clemenza , @Bobby Sharma , @Saj S. , @William Yeh , @Amit M. , @Katrina Razavi , @Kyle Tam , @Ryan Landis , @Jason Hsiao , @Naveed Q. , @Tommy Hoang , @Robin Ji , @Sean Kim , @Joanna Socha, @Michael Koenig, @Michael Martin, @Calvin Kwan, @Susie S., @Andrew Wong, @Angelo Wong, @Kevin Q., @Scott Shope, @David Weintraub, @Pavol Pavol, @Ali Boone

Thanks for the tag @Ariel Smith it's funny @Lawrence Leung I have a post with a very similar title last year because I thought the same thing. It turns out a lot of them are on meetup but not on BP unfortunately. @Bobby Sharma has a good one as does @Ryder Meehan also has one with @Chris V. that is good. 

Ours has so far been less structured just get people together over drinks to discuss real estate and see what happens and how we can help each other

@Patrick Philip lots of good answers. It sounds like you are probably going to buy a place with a house already on the lot. If that is the case and you can't just expand the house plan to also pay for demolition which is not a ton but could eat into your profit. In some cities the fire department will gladly accept your house as a practice home. Set it on fire put it out then pay to haul away the trash but I hear this is getting rarer these days.

You can call a few contractors but without plans or a desired level of finishes whatever they tell you won't be worth much. You could go to an open house and take lots of pictures and try and get their brochure with floor plan and tell him I want something similar to this. Then you'll be in the right ballpark 

@Susie S. There is more info here https://www.meetup.com/SF-Real-Estate-open-format/...

We have purposely been very open format in the past just casual happy hour talk to whomever you want but this time we are going to try putting people on the spot and ask what your goals are for the coming year and what help you might need and then let people match themselves up in groups with similar interests but you are free to roam around if you have multiple interests. 

Also a tenant can sue your for some of their rent back if they lived in an illegal in law not sure how that would work if you are living in the illegal unit and they are upstairs. They might argue they were put at risk by potentially faulty wiring?

Hi Robin,

    That is a lot of work to do in a hot market where you may get out bid in the end. 

Do you have a good real estate agent? While you don't have to have one if this is your first property I would recommend it. You could increase your chances of getting your offer accepted if you let the seller's agent also represent you (double commission) some won't to avoid conflict of interest. If it's already listed someone is going to get that 3% might as well get a good agent to help you negotiate and teach you a lot about the process.

1. Good idea you can look a lot up online however it's hard to tell sometimes if the inlaw was added before the records started or more likely it was just done illegally. Most listings will state unwarranted unit in garage or something like that it usually isn't something they try and hide.

2. Good idea in theory but don't give the address to the official. Generally ( do your own due diligence) as long as there is a safe egress path out of the unit i.e. a swing door not the roll up garage door, and there is an egress window out of every bedroom you should be able to make it legal. They may make you tear open walls to show the plumbing and electrical is up to code but at least it is possible.

3. Typically you only get an inspection after your offer is accepted so I probably wouldn't pay the $500 or more prior to getting my offer accepted.

4. Similar to the inspector most contractors unless you've given them a lot of work in the past will want to get paid to walk a house with you.

I'm not sure exactly how the in law appraises. A lot of it has to do with legal finished space but all else being equal the in law may increase the value a bit compared to dead garage space but not nearly as much as legal square footage.

You can put an appraisal contingency, inspection contingency and a financing contingency which covers you pretty wall but a clean cash offer even if it's less will probably win out. 

This guide is pretty helpful http://www.sf-planning.org/ftp/files/plans-and-pro...

Thanks for the tag @Chris Mason

The next meetup is 2/8/18 in San Francisco. It is very open format just talking to other people over drinks and making connections

 https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/52...

I did some direct mail to Richmond and Vallejo and bought a property for $102,000 plus closing costs. It's a condo with $415 HOA and the rent after repairs will be raised form $1250 to $1650 and over time can be raised potentially to $2000 to $2200 but my friend who is buying the deal from me is sympathetic to the tenants and doesn't want to raise it all at once.

There was a decent amount of deferred maintenance so you can't be afraid to get your hands dirty or know good contractors. But it does hit certain rules.

Turnkey is a big debate on BP I'm of the school of thought that you should learn to acquire and manage one place on your own then maybe look at turnkey if you have a great paying job and more money than time. The downside of turnkey is you usually don't have a lot of equity at the time of purchase so you can't get your original investment capital out until it appreciates a lot. Good turnkeys will get in the path of progress in cities and neighborhoods that should appreciate but aren't  guaranteed to.