All Forum Posts by: Osazee Edebiri

Hi all,

I have some tenants who just gave their 30 day notice that they’re moving. Should I sell or continue to rent?

Their reason for moving: over the weekend, while the husband was in the backyard, someone from over one of the neighbors fences shot him with a BB gun (hit him in the face).

They’re not the type to get the police involved (husband runs a police accountability non-profit) so I know that’s a dead end for me. The wife seemed uneasy with that when I brought it up. 

99% chance it’s someone’s nightmare child. I mentioned that they should ask the neighbor who we think it might be, if their child has a BB gun. Most parents would take away their child’s weapon after they’ve shot someone in the face. That would at least stop future occurrences.

So, now I’m wondering, sell the house (and buy a new one) or rent it out. 

What do you think? Recommendations?

Thank you so much for all the advice.  I am quite nervous to be net negative, but affording a home in this area that is somewhat safe to walk around in is so hard.  Yes, I'm approved for a conventional loan.  I'm in southern Cal, and due to family reasons, have to remain here.  After reading the posts, however, I decided not to proceed with that property, but am continuing to look around.  Wish this market would cool down a bit faster.

maybe you don't understand 

Oakland housing so far as I know. Oakland California doesn't maintain an official list of units. 

instead they push people to affordablehousing.com I have units that are nice but like I said in the post the area they are located in isn't the nicest. 

because of this I have to do more active marketing for the units. 

I am trying to finish other people who might have a similar situation who advertise on affordablehousing.com to see what their experience is. 

[Question for investors in California due to specific market demands in hcol and limited housing supply]

We have a 3 bedroom 3 bathroom house. 2 beds have ensuite bathrooms in downtown San Jose, California. The house is kind of an L shape and the 3rd bed/bath was an addition that could be blocked off and turned into a studio.  I think for someone to live in it comfortably, we would want to add a kitchenette and self-contained heat/air. It will also be easy to partition off part of the yard so each part of the house would have its own space.  

We will be leaving the country for one year for sure, so I was thinking to do the furnished housing for mid-term rentals (traveling nurses, business people etc.) That way we can leave our bigger furniture items while we figure out if we are going to make a longer term move.  

If we decide to move long term and keep this plan going indefinitely, I think the added cost of putting in a kitchenette is a good one because based on my rough estimate from looking at sites like furnished finder, we could probably make $600-800 more by splitting the units.  However, that will come at the added cost of putting in the kitchenette and self-contained heat/cooling.

Questions

1) Does anyone have experience with medium term rentals who has insight into the demand of a 2/2 & studio vs a 3/3? I was thinking a 3/3 would actually be in less demand, but that's why I'm asking to hear if anyone has other insight

2) How essential do you think it would be to put in separate heat/cooling? We have a smart thermostat so everyone could have access to it on their phone.  However, they may not have similar preferences on temperature and the studio gets considerably hotter than the rest of the house.  The estimates on split duct that I was given are about $6000-7000, so it seems like it would take quite a while to get a return on that investment, but I do care about my tenants having a positive experience. 

If anyone with experience in the Bay Area has insight, I would appreciate your thoughts.

Do you use affordablehousing.com ? 

I have two properties in the zip code 94603. The places I have my holdings are a "C" area. The units show well once applicants see them but the area isn't searched much.

I have needed to use a flow send invitations to view my unit
where I login to affordablehousing.com and then select a filter and select "oakland" and then select the appropriate bedroom count and people that I have never contacted. Then I have to send messages one by one to people that meet the filter criteria as the "bulk" never worked for me. 

I was curious to know for those other people who might have holdings in Oakland where your highest and best tenant is a voucher tenant how do you advertise to those people if the rental units aren't in highly desirable areas? 

For sure. I guess I just meant that I currently live in CA and would need to move to another state to house hack, since I'm looking to invest out-of-state. Not impossible per se, just not very ideal for me right now.

Thank you for all the advice! Although house hacking is clearly the most recommended option for obvious reasons, it might not be an option for me since I already own my current residence. So, STR/Multi still seems to be where it's at for me, in the short term, given my priority to maximize cash flow.

Yes, Brentwood is pretty much a newer city and has more 'modern' vibes, Sacramento has these old city vibes (like San Jose).
Brentwood is good because we can reach most major employers that are located in East Bay. 

 This is also great advice. I'd rather Brentwood than Sacramento.

@Osazee Edebiri

I am a newbie here on BP. I can speak from experience living in Southern, Ca. I have been living in Southern Ca.for over 20 years. I can say I will not move out of California. It's been wonderful to buy and live in Irvine, Ca. The weather is amazing, we have 360 days outdoors. We are active people and love to enjoy the outdoors. We are 15 minutes from the beach, 10 -15 minutes from tons of trails to run, and 30-40 minutes to the mountain in the winter. Our first home in 2001 @ 425K and sold in 2006 for 800K. We were waiting for the bubble to burst in 2008-2011, which did not happen in Irvine, Ca. We decided we better buy again. We finally got an offer accepted after we had offered 8-10 homes. We bought 550 K in 2011 and sold 657 K in 2013. In 2013 bought our primary home 890K, now estimated at 1.8 mils. We love the appreciation in Southern Ca. In 13 years and with the luck of the market during those years we went from 425K to 890 K home. I am not sure of other areas but Southern Ca has an amazing appreciation. My friends are all holding their investments in Southern Ca. When I talk to my neighbors it seems everyone got at least 1-3 properties in our areas and is not selling them anytime soon. We are very late in RE investing but now we are ready. The numbers just don't make sense to buy SFR now and rent it out with the current interest rate and high market $ in Southern Ca. We are looking outside California at this time. We wished we learn RE investment sooner, we would have been able to get a few properties in Ca with the equity we have on our current home. We are hoping our oldest daughter will go to San Diego for grad school next year (but her first choice is San Francisco) then we will buy a small place there for her to house hack and can buy with her as a first-time home buyer.