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All Forum Posts by: Zen Ouano

Zen Ouano has started 2 posts and replied 10 times.

Post: Investing in Assisted Living

Zen OuanoPosted
  • Investor
  • Redwood City
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 6

@Jason Brenizer and @Bill S.  thank you for the advice.  I honestly had no idea and wouldn't have thought of  approaching the city like this otherwise.  This is the great thing with this site, with busy people like you taking the time and willing to impart some learnings based on life experience.  I appreciate it.  Thank you again.

Post: Investing in Assisted Living

Zen OuanoPosted
  • Investor
  • Redwood City
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 6

@Bill S.  Thank you for the response.  I will listen to his podcast tomorrow.  Yeah budget is definitely a priority as we dont have extremely "big(ger) pockets" haha!  Looks like I'd need a draft, budget, then submit for city approval.  And will definitely give you an update once we get the ball rolling.  Thank you.

Post: Investing in Assisted Living

Zen OuanoPosted
  • Investor
  • Redwood City
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 6

@Jason Brenizer  Yes we are closing on a duplex in 1 wk here in Dallas.  Location is average, but its very close proximity to 3 hospitals downtown.  We are thinking of doing a 15 bed by either renovating or building new since the house is pretty old, or we'll see what the city will permit. So our first stop will be to inquire about zoning and go from there, since it seems like that might be the first challenging part.  Thank you for the reply.  Very encouraging as we are pretty nervous going forward.  Yes I agree its the best time to get into the ALF.  Thank you.

@Charlie Claxton  Wow looks like you guys are very experienced and proficient at what you do.  Congrats!  Its very smart to find ways to subsidize some aspects of construction costs with tax credits while reducing long term op costs.  And thank you for sharing your recipe for successful ALF: amenities, competetive wages, quality care.   Thank you for all the info.  Husband and I are leaning towards building a smaller new for now, as we want this to be long term and hopefully pass it on to our 2 yr old.  Yeah, I thought of maybe trying to work for an established facility to have firsthand experience working for a facility as we've both always been working in critical areas.  But truthfully, we're afraid to lose momentum and get comfortable.   Actually wrote your 3 ingredients, excellent guiding points for residents to stay happy.   Thank you again for taking the time to respond.

Post: I know I should start now but where is the question

Zen OuanoPosted
  • Investor
  • Redwood City
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 6

Thanks @Dilan Pradhan.  Haha I am a nice person :)  Although I dont know Id qualify to be a mentor as I am newish to RE myself, but of course I can share whatever lessons we've learned as we've stumbled through quite a bit of road blocks with the Dallas prop here.  

And no, we only have 1SFR rental there in RC, our tenant arranges and pays for the all repairs herself (she lets us know tho).  We lucked out, but also at $5k/mo her rent is less than market, so she lucked out with us also.  One 4plex is in Salinas and other 4plex is in Lancaster.  They are both managed by PMs for 3 years now and both PMs are very good.  

I agree that Ca is a tough market to cash flow now.  And you may have to take a bigger risk and go out of state to have a higher cash flow.  Or you can look into other areas of Ca that could potentially have more room to appreciate, easier to manage with a full time job, but sacrifice with smaller cash flow.  It might depend how many years to retirement you have, your long term goals, and how much risk you can sleep with at night. 

Post: Investing in Assisted Living

Zen OuanoPosted
  • Investor
  • Redwood City
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 6

Thanks for the response @John Becker.  I have been interested in this niche bec it seems like a good combination of what I can do.  Also, good profitable rentals right now are hard to come by, not like it was even 2-3 years ago.   Husband and I are both RNs and I have an Econ degree.  So I've always felt that my place is where Healthcare and Finance could meet.  We've been fortunate enough to invest during recession, that we can possibly focus full time and still survive when we do actually start the facility.  Seems like a steeper learning curve with more risks than investing in rentals tho.  My biggest fear would be to buy a big old building only to find out cost to retrofit will be much more than building a smaller one.  Just very limited resource for research out there.  I guess we just need to take the risk.

Post: Newbie from Texas

Zen OuanoPosted
  • Investor
  • Redwood City
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 6

Thank you @Michael S..

Post: I know I should start now but where is the question

Zen OuanoPosted
  • Investor
  • Redwood City
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 6

No.  Just here in Dallas.  We have a 27 unit in downtown Dallas, a duplex by Lovefield Airport, and a paid up condo North Dallas (where we live).  Yeah, I think that was our problem, we did not know anyone here in TX and we had no systems in place.  But I guess as long as you have a trusted partner, and you are buying in a good location (decent renters, solid industries, good local economy) it may work.  PROS here in TX:  1) eviction is simple and fast, 2) growing state, 3) landlord friendly, 4) no state tax (but wont apply to you as you are a CA resident so you may have to pay taxes to CA anyway).  CON: 1) people are less afraid of eviction (we've never had to evict any of our 9 tenants in CA bec there a less rentals and tenants are aftraid of javing bad recods -- speaking personally, with our rentals at good proximity to bigger cities).  Here in Dallas and TX in general, there are lots of rentals competing for renters (IMO). 2) no state tax means you have to pay higher property taxes.  In Dallas county, its approx. 2.8% and it gets reassessed yearly or once every 3 years depending on what kind of property you have.  In CA you have prop 13.  3) we pay more on property insurance here in Tx than CA bec of hail or tornado.  Although we do pay a bit more with quake insurance in Ca.  Biggest lesson I learned, have systems in place and having boots on the ground is invaluable.  Thats why we are planning to set up camp in WA before purchasing anything.  Anyway, good luck and stay cool in SF Bay.

Post: Investing in Assisted Living

Zen OuanoPosted
  • Investor
  • Redwood City
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 6

Hi, can anyone share their experience with purchasing a vacant facility or land for the purpose of building a facility?  We are only in the planning stages, but seems a lot more complicated than just buying regular RE.  How much % downpayment does the bank require and what kind of loan ie commercial RE, business or construction loan? We are looking into either selling a rental property to help purchase a vacant facility, or we have a land that we could potentially build a facility (after rezoning).  Do you think we are better off building new rather than fixing up a 1960-1970's facility?  We are looking into either building a 15+ bed or purchasing an old 20-50 bed.  Thank you for your time.  And advices on what not to do are also welcome :)

Post: I know I should start now but where is the question

Zen OuanoPosted
  • Investor
  • Redwood City
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 6

Hi Dilan, Im a newish investor also.  Husband and I bought our first house there in Redwood City in 2009, fixed it up and rented with a couple roommates ( we were in our 20's :).  Then we bought a fourplex in Salinas (Monterey county), then Lancaster (45 min north of LA).  Then the market became hotter in CA, so we decided to take more risks and bought here in a lower income in downtown Dallas.  But long story short, we ran into tons of issues being an out of state investors.  Our Dallas PM was ineffective, they may have "lost" some rent payments,, and we ran into almost every problem you can think of and lost approx $3K every month.  So we decided to pack up and move here to Dallas (good thing husband and I are both nurses, so our jobs are easy to relocate with).  We evicted approx 16 tenants during the first year alone (Out of 27 units).  Now we make a decent profit.  But it was an eye openner, with the perils of out of state investing.  I dont want to sound discouraging, but just wanted to share, Being a not so sophisticated investor.  On a good note tho, our 3 properties there in CA are running good with us here in TX for 1 year now.  But I have my doubts our properties in TX would run as good if we go back to CA.  But we will see as we are still trying to keep systems in place.  We are looking into Washington State next. BTW, welcome to biggerpockets!

Post: Newbie from Texas

Zen OuanoPosted
  • Investor
  • Redwood City
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 6

Hi everyone!  Im a new member her in BP community though I've been a long term reader (3years).  I find a lot of posts interesting and helpful.  Almost like having mentors guide you through the how to's in RE.  Some of the posts actually helped us out with some issues we faced.  This is an awesome community.  Thank you BP and hello!