Would you consider these to be soft-story and more prone to failure during quakes?  

i have had glass cut for a window at ACE and they cut it for free and just charge for the glass by the quake foot so for your situation you may end up spending more depending on the cost savings and sheet sizes you get in comparison to your window size... i.e. if you save 30% on the glass price but 35% of the glass is scrap pieced you throw away your better off buying from ACE because they only charge you for what you need... 

I got a major equity stake and was president.. ran that for 6 years.. 50 million HML in Bay area.disaster struck in 1989 to 1990  and I sold out in 1992  remember earth quake and war.Bay area took a huge hit then.I then through a sheer luck.. met my future bizz partner around the pool in Maui.. and I got in the timber business in Oregon I lived in Napa valley and commuted form 92 to 2001.. that was a GREAT run and one of the best business I have ever done.went into buying foreclosure in Oregon in 2001 it got uber competitive when trustee info become available on the net.. moved those funds back to HML  ( in those day I just wrote a letter ot the state and got a Mortgage bankers license no test required)  ran that company up to 35 to 40 million then got my postier handed to me in 2008 to 2010 and then put together a company to buy distressed assets.. ran that up to 350 homes form 2010 to 2013 got bought out and had a nice liquidity event.. now I just build houses in Oregon and Charleston and do JV deals with folks in 12 states.

Airy as well, and recently have been doing some normal maintenance/replaces on my home such as brick pointing, new wrought iron railings, new steps and patio. 

I am trying to help my elderly Father-in-law with a project on one of his homes in West Sacramento area.He is wanting to replace an old picket fence with wrought iron.   

Part of the agreement is installing a wrought iron fence around the property (roughly 257ft linear).

High interest rates of the early 80s and Savings and Loan crisis which spawned resolution trust .  2.  1989 regional to mainly CA  was earth quake and war    3. 1999 Dot com bubble which hit N.

However, even with retrofits, the house could still suffer serious damage; from what I understand, even a retrofitted home could still be fairly likely to suffer damage so severe that the home would need to be condemned after a quake (again, I'm not an expert on this, that's just my understanding after reading a few articles).From what I've read, the experts say there's about a 43% chance of a magnitude 7 or greater quake in/around SLC in the next 50 years (for context, a 7+ quake would be devastating; they say 80-85% of homes would have moderate to severe damage, with the older brick homes in areas like Sugarhouse/U of U/ Aves experiencing about 70-100% structure loss).  

I think earth quake insurance in the Bay area is fairly rare. 

So if you buy it to rent, then will you find someone who is working and able to pay monthly. this is a big problem in PR. as far as natural disasters, there are summer storms (hurricanes) and right now we are dealing with earth quakes in Southern PR near the Ponce area.