All Forum Posts by: Greg Scott

What is your interest rate on your mortgage?

If you know how to make rates of return higher than that, I would say it is better to invest the money than pay down your mortgage early.

If you don't know how to do that, then either pay down your mortgage or learn how to improve your investment returns.

A friend of a friend lives in a development just like this in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  I went there and saw the place about 10 years ago.  Occasionally, I see both of these people.

Out of curiosity, I asked what it was like living there and how it was going.  This was his summary:

The upside is the feeling of community.  The downside is that 10% of the people do 90% of the work to maintain the community.   The 10% that care eventually get burned out.  He was one of the 10%.  They were looking to move.

Yep, I never want to hear about Columbus.  Go Blue!

No.  That is what auto insurance is for.

I would never want a condo as a rental.  There are a lot of reasons that is a bad idea.

On the other hand, if you could buy the entire condo and turn it into a small apartment, there may be an opportunity.  Not enough data to tell.

I agree cash flow is important but could never vote for anything with the title "Cash Flow Market".

I find Cash Flow vs Appreciation to be a dangerous discussion. The best investors get BOTH!

Since BP has this new funky advertisement in the forums that does not allow you to reply, (link above) I'll reply using the same title in hopes to generate some conversation. (Why don't they allow us to post a counter-argument????)

Data over the last century shoes REITs have a correlation to stock market returns.  Congratulations you are correlated and invested in a highly taxed asset class that went up recently.  Yay for you!

I've bought apartment complexes from REITs. In my experience, REITs are terrible at managing their property.  I would NEVER choose similar portfolio of REITs over those managed by experienced investors.  Moreover, you have much higher overhead than most experienced investors.

In a REIT you are missing out on all the tax benefits. You have no write-offs. Meanwhile, my investors that bought a property from a REIT had a 60% paper loss from just purchasing the property. They got cash in their pocket from distributions, and a huge tax write-off that you have no way of getting.

REIT returns are not comparable to direct investing! Is BP getting paid by REITs? This is a huge disservice to the real estate investing community to post this drivel!

Most office is not suitable for transformation to multifamily.  Unless you know exactly what you are doing, you could be financially destroyed.

Listen here: https://www.victorjm.com/2022/05/office-to-residential-conve...

I can't speak for California, but I am aware of federal laws.

Due to its cost, this would NOT be considered a reasonable accommodation.  In other words, you would not be required to make those changes.  Some times a tenant is willing to pay for changes.  If they wanted to pay for the updates and agreed to restore the property to its original condition (if you wanted them to) after they left, you would need to allow it.  However, this is unlikely in your case.

So what is there to do?  A reasonable accommodation would be to let them out of their lease without penalty once they find a suitable residence.