All Forum Posts by: Trudy Pachon

Yes, Troy Koepellin San Diego Tax is who we use and recommend.  

Oooh, I can't wait for this! Here in San Diego there is a big demand for this type of rental for sure. Lovely, furnished, short-term rentals are needed in areas with growing industries and businesses, universities, great scenery or vacationing, and of course health care. San Diego has all of this, and we are considering doing this with one of our units. There isn't a lot of info out there for medium tern rentals, so this is really going to fill a void! 

@Tyler Sample

There are a couple of places that I trust, but there are also a lot of scammy pump and dump type channels as well. It's a bit of the wild west. Start with the Bitcoin White Paper by Satoshi Nakamoto. It's the holy grail of blockchain. Try to understand the problem Bitcoin was trying to solve and how it solves it. It's a beautiful thing! 

I like DAN teaches crypto. Rob is a cool guy and his website has a helpful free course. Ivan on Tech can be helpful, but I would be careful with any "advice" on altcoins from any of these folks until you learn the basics. I think the space can be easily manipulated by Youtubers "suggesting" this or that coin to pump the price up and then they dump. Anyway, it's a start. Be very careful, but it's a great space for high returns right now. High risk = high reward

I just recently rediscovered Bitcoin and crypto. Had an acquaintance that tried to sell me on it in 2016, but I didn't get it then. Wish I had listened then, but I get it now. It's been quite a ride!

Tokenization of assets sounds interesting to me. NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are something that I'm trying to learn more about. We've created a few on Rarible, but it seems like there is a lot you could do with this method of insuring validity to an item. 

There is a fun little sandbox I've been playing in called Decentraland which deals with virtual land/real estate/stuff. Some really smart folks are doing really innovative things in the space. If blockchain technology is more widely adopted, it will be interesting to see how these two asset classes find ways to interact in the real world

@John Verduzco

We are still in California now, but are planning on moving down there next year, if all goes well. We have the place rented now, and haven't had any issues. But the pace of getting our home in our name has been incredibly slow! We just finished the last step and are waiting for the paperwork to go to our notario. It's kind of unbelievable that it's taken this long. 

We are in La Cascada, Jalatlaco was a bit too pricey for us! But it's a fun neighborhood. Our colonia is a bit more unhip residential, but it still pretty close to everything. 

We are planning on buying a van in BC, and then driving down to Oaxaca. It should be interesting with all of our stuff and our dog! 

Cities are very different in character from one another. San Diego is really spread out. I am from SD, and I can't imagine living anywhere else.

We live in the central area of east San Diego. Yes there is traffic and a bit of crime and homelessness. It's a big city, but we have our tiny yard sanctuary and garden. We love it here. It's diverse, great people, lots of attractions, etc. House prices in our neighborhood have actually gone up, and they are being sold quickly. We can't believe people are buying so much during the pandemic! 

I don't think many people are going to leave. We just have such a great quality of life. No one I know is moving away because it's cheaper, or because of the pandemic. This city will be fine, I think. We pay a premium to live here with wonderful weather, beaches, mountains and deserts. For us, it's worth it! 

@Chinmay J.

That's a good way to keep awesome tenants. I do pretty much the same thing. I only have a few units, so maybe larger operators have different needs. But I do everything I can to keep my tenants happy and in our places for as long as possible. I wouldn't even consider raising rents now because it just looks gross to people since we're in a pandemic. 

The perception that landlords are all greedy is popular, and one that can lead to legislative changes. I am in California, but I know that other places are seeing similar problems. California passed a statewide rent control law recently, and our laws are pretty tenant friendly. But it's hard to argue for landlords when everyone thinks we are cold-blooded money grabbers. Raising rents during a pandemic is not a good look. IMHO, our business is one that can mess with people's live in big ways and it's not like most others. Our products are people's homes. We need some good press right now with rent strikes being threatened all over the place. It might be a good idea to be conscious of that and deal with a few bucks less until this pandemic thing clears up. 

We only have a few units (4) so it's relatively easy for us to manage. We use Tenant Cloud for all our rent collection, applications and leases. It makes it so easy. I also concur with many of the self-managing folks on reasons for it. I would add a couple of things

1. I really like chatting with and vetting my own tenants. I feel like I have a relationship with them, and that seems to help me to choose good people, and get people to cooperate on the things that need to be done. I have had tenants actually help me sell my property, find new tenants, and make repairs and changes that might have been more difficult if there wasn't a good relationship there. 

2. I enjoy working on the property. I don't know why, I just do. Maybe it's weird, but I think it's fun to clean and paint and do maintenance. For stuff I don't want to do, I just hire someone. 

3. I like having control of all of the financials. I just like seeing everything and managing work, banking, etc. myself. 

We have actually paid our tenants to move out. We told them that it would be hard to find a nice place with an eviction and it was in everybody's best interest for them to find another place. 

To make it easier for them to agree, we gave them their deposit back, which was pretty low and wouldn't be enough for a new place. We also added another 1.5k or something like that to help them with their new deposit. They would get the extra $$ only if they moved out on the date we needed them to. It worked, and everybody felt OK about the deal.

@Imelda L. 

Oaxaca is awesome. I am glad I decided to purchase there. It's a bit weird right now but this too shall pass