All Forum Posts by: Mel Jones

Near Dodger Stadium.

I'm curious to see what responses you get. I'm a Realtor and completely understand why the 2.5% commission seems like a racket. But there really is more to selling a listing than just pricing it right. Agents are, often, scumbags, and if you have a sellers agent who's willing to work for less than standard commission, it's going to be the kind of agent who isn't an expert negotiator. Or they've got a smidge of desperation, they want it too bad. The buyer's agents can SMELL weakness and that's bad.  You could end up leaving money on the table in negotiations, in escrow, making the whole process more fraught than it needs to be.  There are so many ways to screw up a deal, and paying 40K instead of 50K to an agent, in my opinion, wouldn't be worth the risk. But again I'm curious if other have had different experiences negotiating the commission in LA.

We own a duplex in an expensive hillside neighborhood in Los Angeles. The house behind us, which has a very large lot and we share a long property line with, is for sale. If we purchased we would own almost a half acre of land. All of the parcels of land including ours are zoned R1. The house for sale rents for about the same as the PITI (was leased on MLS so I can see the amount) if we can come up with 20% down, which we can do. We would need to make some magic (hard money??) to get the 100K reserves to qualify for the loan. We bought at a good time and have about 600K of equity in our property now.

I don't know WHAT we would do with a half acre with all parcels zoned R1, but it seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity to have this much land that I assume could be developed... somehow, someday?   I am a realtor and there are zero comps for property or land with a lot of this size anywhere near here!  Would love to hear anyone's creative ideas (or warnings!) 

Actually it's true - it may not be technically a duplex... it's zoned R1 but approved for use by the city as 2 units. Remains to be seen if our financing will actually work out - we're only approved for the high purchase price if it's legal income property. Our agent says it's extraordinary that the sellers accepted our offer given it's FHA, but they have put a lot of sweat equity into the home and wanted to sell it to someone who they liked.

Hi all - welcome your advice
I'm a first time homebuyer with a husband and 2 young kids. We've been looking to find a duplex with two homes on a lot, and the environment is very competitive at this moment: at lower price points (625K max) only considering very nice streets in Hollywood/Northeast Los Angeles, with at least 1400sf for the owner unit and a decent lot (5000sf+). After losing a number of properties to all cash investors, we've gotten an offer accepted on a duplex- here's the stats

$615,000 (7,500 sf lot) 995sf front house, 2b/1ba, totally clean, enormous private deck with great views, rent could be 1800-2100

1500sf back house, also totally clean, 3bd/2ba, which was recently rented out as two separate units & converted back for sale, so the layout is as awkward as you'd expect two apartments fused together would be... but we think we could reconfigure and make it groovy. Rent could be 2100-2400.

We don't have 20% down to qualify for conventional, so we're looking at FHA with 5% down; Monthly payment will be about $4,200.

So, if our circumstances changed dramatically (we don't anticipate this,) we'd be able to basically cover the payment with the rents, though it wouldn't be positive cash flow right away.

Does this sound like a smart way into the market?
Our ultimate goal is to live in a normal house, and keep this as investment property indefinitely.