All Forum Posts by: Eric Dowling

Holly Iske I was a stay at home dad the first 9 months with my son. I started real estate when he was born and he would come with me to the office for class and meetings. I took him door knocking which I would suggest, everyone opens the door for a baby! I can't believe people don't let you come to REIA meetings with him. Day to day it is basically impossible to get anything done when he is awake, and then you have the guilt of not being present when he needs your attention. What I did was when he was awake it was his time, and when he was asleep it was my time to work. So during his naps and the evenings was the only time I made calls. It was extremely hard because when I put him down for a nap all I want to do is sit on the couch and stare at the wall for an hour. I ended up putting him in daycare, which was hard, but like you, I had to choose to go all in on real estate or continue to struggle. It is tough. Going into it, it seems like you should be able to work from home and take care of a baby, but put to practice it is very hard.

@Tim Jonasson Wow I have always avoided land leases, but I didn't realize the holder had so much to gain at the expiration of the lease!

Sell maybe? But then again banks are not going to want to loan so it could be very difficult to sell.

I think short term rental, and managing yourself would get you a lot closer to break even or even cashflow positive than long term rental. I have seen an increase in occupancy since the Canadian dollar pooped. Both SFR and Condo properties (Only 2 properties though). The key is you can make your place easily stand out against your competition. There are tons of VR's, but the 80/20 rules exists here as well. 20% of the properties are getting 80% of the bookings.

What are your expences break down? Mortgage, hoa, land lease? what does the HOA include? Does it allow vacation rentals under 30 days? What community is it in? With this we can get a better idea of what you can expect from a short term rental.

@Riq H. Yes and no. If you are not going to hold them to the time frame, then a shorter loan contingency makes no difference. If they put their contingencies at 10 days, then send them a notice to perform, you can do it as early as day 8, and cancel when they do not and move on to the next buyer.  If they do remove and fail to close because they failed to get the loan then you keep the deposit and again move on to the next buyer.

Mel Saffold 1. Make sure local laws allow vacation rentals. This means actual laws on the books and systems to collect taxes. Not areas that currently allow them unofficially. 2. Make sure HOA allows vacation rentals. I stay away from HOA's. You could buy today and then they decide tomorrow you can only rent 30+ days. 3. How long is the high season? If you only rent for 12 -15 weeks a year make sure you base your numbers on that. Does it rent in the off season as well?

Riq H. The reason you can not collect the deposit is the buyers still have their contingencies in place. In residential real estate, the contingencies are removed by the buyer actively (i.e signing removal on contingencies form), not passively based on a date. If you gave them an extra 10 days, you can deliver the notice to perform (telling them to remove contingencies) and if they do not you can cancel and move on to the next buyer. You do not however get to keep the deposit at this point since they have not actively removed the contingencies. So to keep the deposit they would have had to remove all contingencies, and then you deliver a demand to close escrow which gives them 3 days, and then you could keep the deposit if they do not perform.

@Dane Zaun welcome to BP! House hacking can be a great way to get started in LA! Lots of resources on that front here. Don't hesitate to reach out!

Andrew McNulty They tend to hurt the resale more than help. Banks don't loan on properties with them. So yes they do transfer, but only with cash purchases.

@John Acklen  oops I read it wrong! Study hard and good luck on the exam!

@Geo Tan that if it is vacant you have a great starting point for market rate rents right away if it is rent controlled.

@John Acklen congrats on passing the exam! LA is a great market to be is as an agent. 

Good luck and don't hesitate to reach out!