All Forum Posts by: Deanna O.

Oh, sorry -- context. There has been a bunch of backlash against Airbnb in San Francisco, because it is reducing the available housing for the low-income residents. It's now worth fixing up the run-down residential hotels & scruffy apartments & renting them out on Airbnb vs to long-term low-income occupants. A significant majority of the current residential occupants are disabled, addicts, mentally ill and/or the borderline homeless. Some are employed part-time in low-wage job. If SF loses the hotel beds the poor will have to live on the streets or move out of SF.

I guess I may have a position that is similar to Scott --- I use Airbnb all the time when I travel for work, & find vastly preferable to economy hotels (when my clients put me up at the 4-5 star hotels however I DO prefer that LOL). 

I usually only rent a single room, so it is often staying in a home-owner/renter's spare room. It's all over the board as far as whether the landlord knows -- in some apts shall we say the landlord "surmises" that it is going on without officially "knowing". From the landlord prospective it makes for a more financially stable tenant who is motivated to be clean & trouble-free. As long as the other tenants don't mind (which if they are also doing Airbnb they won't) everything can work out pretty well. For what it's worth, Airbnb does maintain their own liability insurance for the hosts.

Honestly, there are some parties who are dis-enfrancised by the gig economy (taxi drivers, cheap hotels), but in many cases it just makes them up their game - ever note how much cleaner taxis are these days? And the drivers are more polite? The low-income residents in SF who complain I'm afraid I'm less sympathetic to -- ("It is my human RIGHT to live continue wherever I want, no matter how little I earn. Landlords OWN the property, so it doesn't cost them anything to rent it to me. Besides which, they are rich & I'm not.").

Matt R - I live in San Diego - zero surprise we weren't in the top 20. Great place to live, but no good building site that is anywhere near a good commute, extremely high cost of housing ($500k average for a basic 50 year old tract home), no decent public transit, over-all poor education levels in the public schools. Throw in a city government that can't solve even basic problems intelligently & meh, why bother.

Scott R. - quick correction -- property taxes in CA aren't "rising". They are still 1% of purchase price and have been since the 70s. What HAS changed is property values, thus if you buy a $700k house you will pay @ $7k per year, while your neighbor who purchased his (identical) home in 2008 might only be paying $3k.  New buyers frequently complain about how this is "unfair"...until the value of their property goes up (at which point you don't hear a peep LOL).

The good news is that no matter how much the market value of your property goes up the tax only increases a max of 2% per year,meaning that Year 2 your tax won't exceed 1.02% of purchase price, third year 1.04%, year 4 is 1.06% etc. 

What true emergency costs only $400? And who says there will only be one?

IMHO a lot of so-called "emergencies" are really planning failures. If you drive you your tires WILL wear out, your brake pads WILL need to be replaced, your car WILL need repairs. If you have set aside $ for the inevitable it is a mere inconvenience vs an emergency. (if you have kids they WILL get sick, and virtually everyone who is employed will at some point be not employed).

I've been self-employed for almost 24 years in a field that is very vulnerable to economic conditions (large event production). For years I have had a plan A, B, C & D.

Plan A - everything is going great. Stash $ in the retirement funds, upgrade the vehicles from Saturns to Toyotas, buy a bunch of gear. Starbucks & smoked salmon. I LOVE smoked salmon.

Plan B  - things are a bit wobbly in the economy. No unnecessary expenses, tighten the belt a bit. Still buy coffee at Starbucks on work days.

Plan C - (Dot.com bust, 9/11, '08). Nothing gets spent that isn't mandatory. Save every $ possible, take absolutely any work that comes along, even if I'm wildly over-qualified (not a good long-term strategy BTW). Cook at home, bring lunch to work.

Plan D -  Batten down for the Zombie Apocalypse. Beans & rice, sell everything, move in with family & get rid of the horse

Fortunately I've never had to go to plan D.  In the current economy I am hovering between A & B, but watching carefully, & ready to shift to plan C quickly if needed.

So yes, significantly than $400 avail. I'd still have more than $400 avail AFTER an emergency ('cause who says you can't have more than one?).

I've also done a lot of planning ahead to keep incidents from being emergencies. For example I always own two cars, thus a flat tire or dead battery (or even a motor blowing up) is an annoyance, not an emergency.  Uber would be a functional work-around if needed, but for me the convenience of owning the extra car is worth the several hundred $ per year for insurance & registration.

Out of curiosity, when the neighbor informed you was their attitude "just think you ought to know" or "we really don't like this"?  I've found that staying on good terms with the neighbors in an out of area rental is really, really important.

It would be inter

My Mom likes the idea of making T-shirts for home buyers with Sleeping Beauty's Castle on the front with the title "Before Escrow Closes" and the Haunted Mansion on the back with "After Escrow Closes".

She nixed the idea of "Slumlord" outlined in Rhinestones -- she said too many people wouldn't understand the irony (my house is really nice).

Scariest;  first ACCEPTED offer, signing all that paperwork going into escrow (after reading and understanding EXACTLY what it all means), 

Second scariest; @ 2 weeks into rehab (doing most of it myself), looking through where walls and floors had been, wondering what I had gotten myself into.

Funniest with a Halloween theme - one fine early Sunday evening I get a call; "The stove is possessed" my tenants announces.

Turns out the stove had spontaneously gone into clean mode. It locked the door and cranked itself up to 1,000 degrees, cremating the pizza my lovely tenants had planned to have for dinner. Thankfully, after a few minutes of panic they thought to pull the stove out and unplug it. No harm except for some smoke. Who would have thought that a 1987 harvest gold color stove would have a motherboard that could go berzerk. 

IMHO it's borderline "lose your license" territory if he lied about the condition of the property he was representing for the seller in order to convince you to buy and collect a double commission.  If there are any e-mails regarding the condition/neighborhood of the property maybe forward those to his broker? If his representation is blatantly false, maybe the Board of Realtors. 

As far as the $5k, it might be his way of trying to get rid of you-- oblige him ; )

I agree with others that it's not reasonable to expect an agent to spend infinite time hunting down bargains for you, traveling around with you to look at them and making dozens of 1-in-100 chance offers. Given that you are hunting for bargains and offering low on a lot of properties, maybe you'll need to do most of your own leg-work locating & inspecting properties, but find an agent to work with who is willing to work with you on submitting the offers (and of course follow through on the sale, and get their commission). I've come across other BP investors who have made this model work - their realtor is basically doing paperwork, the agent will toss them info on deals if she hears about them, but it's basically self-serve real estate.

For what its worth, San Diego, currently is in a really crazy high-priced rental market right now. That is going to drive the numbers just a tad silly-high. Rents have gone nuts in the past 2 years, there is NOT enough property of any type for sale, and there is foreign money that wants a safe haven in the US. It is definitely a seller's market, so some sellers will try to shoot for the moon on prices, and some buyers will pay those prices.

BTW, I was born in San Diego. As far as I can tell, just about every wood framed building here either has had, does have, or will have termites. We joke that the only thing keeping some houses standing is the termites holding hands. It's just part of the territory.

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IMHO it's borderline "lose your license" stuff if he lied about the condition of the property he was representing for the seller in order to try to get you to buy and collect a double commission.  If there are any e-mails regarding the condition/neighborhood of the property maybe forward those to his broker? If the lies are blatantly false, maybe the Board of Realtors. 

As far as the $5k, it might be his was of trying to get rid of you, so I'd suggest you oblige him ASAP.

Given that you are hunting for bargains and offering low on a lot of properties, maybe you can do most of your own foot-work locating & inspecting properties, but find an agent to work with who is willing to work with you on submitting the offers (and of course follow through on the sale, getting their commission). That is a fairer situation for the RE agent, but still gets done what you need.