All Forum Posts by: Kyle J.

To answer your question, my guess is that the legislature will extend the moratorium beyond the current January 31st expiration date.  However, they won't significantly expand upon the protections provided by AB3088.  In other words, it will still just protect tenants against eviction due to nonpayment of rent.  

The existing law (AB3088) was passed with bipartisan support last year, and Governor Newsom has already expressed his desire to see a new bill passed to extend AB3088 before it expires.  (Source: Newsom to Legislature: Don’t let state’s eviction protections lapse)

However, both of the bills currently being considered (Chiu's Assembly Bill 15, and Caballero's Senate Bill 3) only extend the date.   So evictions for other non-rent related lease violations could potentially still go through.

You should research these bill's though, as Chiu's bill is vastly worse for us landlords since it extends the protections for non-paying tenants all the way to 2022.  (By comparison, Caballero's bill only extends it two extra months.)  Let's hope the California Apartment Association is able to work with the governor and legislature to convince them to decide on something more reasonable.  

@Bao Tran Sorry you and your parents are going through this. 

First, the bad news. Based on what you described (tenant paying absolutely nothing), you didn’t have to wait this long. You could likely have started the eviction process already. However, it sounds like neither the tenant or you guys knew or followed the process laid out in the new law.

But it’s totally understandable. The new law (AB3088, also known as the COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act of 2020) is very complicated. Here’s what could/should have happened, as an example:

Now, the good news. It’s not too late. In fact, the protections afforded to the tenant under this law are actually expiring at the end of this month.  (Be advised there is already talk to pass new laws that would extend them though, although nothing has been finalized yet. Don’t delay though!) 

The best thing you could do at this point is do as @Chad Hale suggested and hire a competent landlord-tenant attorney to help you through this process and get this deadbeat tenant out of your parents’ property.

Good luck!

In the scenario you described (loaning money directly to a friend with the loan being secured by the property), no - the lender would not be required to be accredited.  

@Enrique H. Do not pay this tenant any money. Cash for keys only works if the tenant completely moves out, turns over the keys, and returns possession of the property to the landlord. Then, and only then, would you pay her any agreed upon money. 

And if that’s how you did it, you would immediately change the locks and the place would be yours again. She wouldn’t get to tell you that you don’t get to go inside until the end of the month. That’s ridiculous. She wouldn’t be your tenant anymore and that wouldn’t be her property any longer.

Sounds like she’s just trying to play you and get the $600 without moving out. 

There was zero origination fee, points, or any costs to me whatsoever.  And the interest rate was 2.5%.  I know, hard to believe.  All the way up until closing I kept waiting for them to sneak in some extra charge somewhere.  However, true to their word, the new loan amount was exactly the payoff amount on my old mortgage.  There was truly no cost to me for the refi.  

(After one month, they sold the loan.  So perhaps they make some money that way?  I don't really know, and honestly didn't really care.  I just know the refi didn't cost me anything.)

@Peter Morgan  You won't need to purchase a new Owner's title policy (since you're still the owner), but you will need to obtain a new Lender's title policy.  

The original Lender's title policy doesn’t insure the new mortgage created for you when you refinance, and it also doesn’t provide protection against events that may have transpired between the original purchase and this refinance (e.g. liens, legal judgments, etc).

Having said all that, just because you'll need to obtain a new Lender's title policy, doesn't mean YOU need to pay for it.  When you get a new (original) mortgage, you almost always have to pay for the Lender's title policy.  However, when you refi, it's fairly easy to find a lender willing to pay for that cost for you.  In fact, I just recently refinanced a mortgage and the lender paid for all of my closing costs, Lender title insurance, and they would have been willing to pay for my appraisal too except they ended up waiving the requirement for it.  And I'm not talking about a situation where they roll these costs into the loan and I'm just not coming out of pocket for them.  I'm talking about where they actually paid them.  

You might just have to shop around until you find a lender willing to do this.  But regardless of who pays for it, you will need a new Lender's title policy.

@Jacob Stokes While it can be hard to price a rental if there are no/limited comps, I’m not sure a newspaper and yard signs (or lack thereof) are the best gauge. At least in my market, those are not the most popular places to advertise rentals. 

In addition to the good advice that has already been given, perhaps try some other sources. Zillow, Rentometer, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace are all example of popular online places where people commonly list their properties for rent. 

Also, do you have any local property management companies in your area? Perhaps interview one (or more) of them and see what they’d recommend charging.

Lastly, check out this article and maybe you’ll get some other ideas: How to Determine Fair Market Rent

Best of luck. 

@Ben Hollingsworth I like the Chase Ink Business cards. There's a couple good ones (Business Unlimited with 1.5% cash back on everything, or Business Cash with 1% cash back on everything + 5% back on select categories). Both have no annual fee, allow you to put in job names/numbers when making purchases, give you the option to get extra cards with different card numbers for authorized users/employees (so you can track who made which purchases), and they don't report the balances on your personal credit report (so it won't count against your DTI ratio for future lending purposes). The cash back you accumulate for your purchases is a nice bonus too. :)

@Peter Thielemann Just go here: 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/podcast_episodes?page=28&series=BiggerPockets+Podcast

It starts at Episode 1 and goes up from there.

@Peter Thielemann Here you go:

BiggerPockets Podcast 006: Investing While Holding a Full Time Job with Arthur Garcia