All Forum Posts by: Radhika M.

@J. Martin Congratulations. You have show what hard work and determination can get you in a short period of time.  Doing this in the bay area with nothing to start with is awesome.

@Steven Helton

 Welcome to BP. This is a great place for learning. You can find people investing locally (in Bay area) or out of state. Good luck with your Journey.

@Brie Schmidt

 Congratulations. What you have accomplished in less than 4 years is amazing. 

Enjoy you vacation you need it :)

@Will E.

 The buyers get a percentage of the commission back from redfin.   If a buyer buys a 1 million property they get 10,000 + back. Actually Redfin used to show how much commission you would get back if you went with their agent. 

In regards what are negatives of Redfin I think they miss some of the personal touch than some of the good agents. I also remember reading that their agents worked on salary so they make less than regular agents and a lot of the good agents will not work in this way so you end up working with the newer agents. I am not expert here but this what I have read and was told by a few people who worked with redfin.

@Will E. Like the others have mentioned above there are agents who charge less. I live the the Bay Area and know the prices here an a commission of 6% seems high for the prices.  It may not seem so right now in the Bay area but usually 3 mil range properties generally take time to sell and more investment in marketing and staging .

 I think you can find a really good agent for the 4 to 4.5% range. 

If you want to do less than that you may be able to find for 3.5 % or so. Redfin actually does take a lot less commission and I know friends who have used their agent to buy properties.

Good luck!

@Rochelle Wilkinson

 Welcome to bigger pockets. You are doing a great job and I am impressed at the changes you have been able to do  in a short time. You also seem to care about tenants which is a good after all they are your clients.

In regards to the community room it could be tricky like what @Account Closed

 Could you consider doing like a nice room that you could rent for Parties or events.

This is common in some of the upper end apartments in California and they rent it by the hour and charge per hour.

We had just bought our 4 plex and I was looking on how to introduce ourselves to the tenants and when I did a search I found a landlord blog. This blog had a mention of one of @Brandon Turner post.

I have been hooked since.  I am so glad I found it and wished I had found it sooner.

@David Nolan

 Thanks for taking the time to explain more about what you do. I do understand that it makes sense to buy in the bottom and selling in the top. To time the market that way you have to be really know your market and need to study it. And as investors we are should do it but it is very hard to time the top and bottom.

Even if I time the market correctly there are couple factors that come into play  you have to consider when selling at the top and buying in the bottom. One is income tax considerations on the profit and the other is property tax consideration. On the property tax consideration in California where the discussion is happening about property tax don't increase drastically over time with property price increase. So by keeping a property you bough 10 or so years keeps your expenses low.

Great discussion everyone. I have learnt a lot about different perspectives by reading the thread.

@David Nolan

 I am no where as experience as @Account Closed or yourself but one thing I noticed in your most recent post was that you like to realize the your profit sooner and cash out and that is one strategy which I consider more closer to a flip (depending on how long you hold the property) or shot term buy and hold.

But what about investors that want to do long term buy and hold.  I do see buying properties and selling them and buying them again as more work than buying and holding the properties long term. That is one specific reason we decided to invest in only "A" or "B" area as possible as these would be good investments to hold for 20 or more years if we wanted to. 

@Marcia Maynard

 While I agree that the turnovers are costly and having long term tenants is good I see the negative of this in a market especially where rent control is in place.

An example we bought a 4 plex last year and we have one tenant who have been there for 20+ years and another who has been 5+ years. The previous owner did not increase rates until he planned to sell them.  Now these tenants are so under the market (one tenant is about 800 dollars below and another is 600 dollars below market about 30%). with rent control in place we cant raise more than x percent per so it will take us 3 to 4 years to get to with in 5 to 10% of market.  I am okay with the rents being lower by 5% but anything more

@Casey Miles

 Based on the little experience I have with the being a landlord and the issue I am facing above I would say you should monitor the rents yearly and as long as as the rents are 5% to 10% off market we can not increase the rent. If the they are below 10% or so I think you should do small increase.