All Forum Posts by: Brian Garlington

Manny there’s a gentleman that has meetups every couple of months that does this. I THINK his name is Juan Diaz and he has done this on a number of properties over the years in Oakland and a few on the Peninsula. I think he just started meetups again so try to look him up on Meetup.

Olu and Victor we just had one in Livermore last night and it was on meetup. There’s another one going on in San Francisco this Saturday and it’s also on Meetup.

Misa….if your intentions are to buy and hold in the Bay Area then you will be fine buying now. Whatever the prices are mow in Concord they will be MORE 10-30 years from now.

Properly screened Section8 tenant vs. Properly screened Cash tenant? 

I take the Section8 tenant.

Screen the PM the same way. You can tell by how they answer questions if they are comfortable with Section8. I even had a couple of PMs actually tell me they charge more of a percentage to work with Section8….. and they wondered why I didn’t hire them. I had another PM that said yes they do work with Section8…. then they proceeded to do everything imaginable to somehow not rent to the dozens of applicants…. even after they passed the background check and came in with the deposit. I found this out after the fact and promptly fired them.

Not sure what you mean by “typical stereotypical bad section 8 tenant”.

I have Section8 tenants in Cleveland as well as cash tenants . Guess which ones cause the most drama? Guess which ones claim the most frivolous maintenance requests? It’s the latter not the former.  Oh, by the way 70-100% of the rent money is guaranteed. I’m sure you have heard of one or two landlords on this  forum perhaps mentioning being concerned about not being able to collect any rent and still not being able to evict a tenant 😉. In any case, all you need to do is let the housing authority know that you are the new owner. It may take them 2 or 3 months to “catch up” to you with the payments but they will take care of you and make it retroactive. Also make sure the seller transfers the security deposit that the tenant made over to you. Finally make sure you have the seller fill out an estoppel before closing and if you can, make sure the tenant fills out one before closing. If for some reason you can’t get one from the tenant before closing then get one immediately after closing.

Do not make this a requirement of being able to rent from you. 

Do not even ask a potential tenant if they have received the shot. There are countless ways that you even broaching this subject with them can get you in warm water that can quickly become hot. 

If you don't see a lot of discussion about it on the forums that should be your first clue.....especially of this has been "in the news" for almost two years at this point. 

Are they applying on Zillow? My experience with them is you get A LOT of people that blindly respond that don't even read the advertisement. I'm talking about 93/94 percent. Then when I aske them basic things like do you smoke...and they say they didn't see that in the ad it is almost comical since that is literally the first sentence in the add, "No Smokers".

Craigslist is definitely much better.

@Chris Mason is correct. 

A 15 unit property in SF for only $5 Million? 

What part of The City is it in?

GC's won't come out to look at a property that you "might buy" because you are not vested in the property. You will need to pay them up front and make it worth their time.