All Forum Posts by: William Shimerman

@Serena Halterman, your new best friend and worst enemy - because the site always lags and has bugs - is going to be ZIMAS. As @Xander Tertychny stated you will need to determine what is already allowed versus what you analyze will be the highest and best use of the land. Pay special attention to any zoning that has a [Q] condition, CPIO, or HPOZ, those can have a detrimental impact on what you can build. 

@Ryan Passi, I have no experience with him personally, however, Dennis Block advertises a lot in the LA area. I even think his website is 123evict or something similar. 

@Account Closed, as Bryant alluded to, land can have drastically different values to different people. It's one of those "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" situations. Your first steps will be to determine zoning which will tell you the allowable uses; and any covenant, conditions, and restrictions on the property. If it is in City of LA, you can go to their website - zimas.com - and start digging into the parcel(s). They used to be good about answering general questions before COVID, but now the wait can be a few days to a week. Good Luck.  

@Stephanie Kordan The County Registrar should have all the past tax bills and whether any are outstanding. You can also contact a title company and order a prelim and see if anything odd shows up on the report. I would say you could order a full title report but I don't think you have enough time before the auction. 

I want to echo some of the other posters' comments. For a 1 BR in a 1920s building, I think you would have a hard time finding other units asking/renting for +/- $2,400 even if it is a stand-alone bungalow in hipster Highland Park. 

I do like the idea some other posters had regarding following up with prospective tenants and finding out what they liked and didn't like. 

It really depends on where in LA you are talking and what class of building. Class A apartments are seeing the most negative impact on rent and vacancy, but Class B and C are doing okay as long as the neighborhood doesn't have negative net unit absorption - Downtown LA and Koreatown are prime examples.  

Available product for sale is definitely limited and in general, it doesn't seem sellers are reducing their pricing expectations unless they are motivated to sell. 

I agree with @Mike Cumbie. It seems like the unit will need at least modest renovations and if it is in LA, you are getting back a rent-controlled unit that likely had under-market rents based on your post. I'd get something in writing of their move out date and leave it at that. The brain damage and time you would likely spend to reclaim any of the back rent isn't worth it and that's if you can even manage to get anything. Remember you can't get blood from a stone. Good Luck. 

The very first thing to do is look on Zimas, as @davidfeathersone implied. If the zoning doesn't allow for residential, than it doesn't matter about the rest. If it doesn't there are ways to apply for a conditional use permit or re-zoning but often times it is too much of a headache in LA. 

All evictions have been placed on hold in LA County. You can still attempt a "cash-for-keys" agreement, but if the tenant refuses to move you won't be able to process anything via the court system. There is a forthcoming judgment this month that will provide some clarity on evictions that were already in the works before the moratorium and could shed some light on the situation as a whole. Hope this helps. 

@Raul Ramirez two books that I found helpful were

Investing in Apartment Buildings by Matthew A Martinez

What every RE investor needs to know about cash flow by Frank Gallinelli