All Forum Posts by: Sam Josh

The Bay Area market is a difficult one to fathom, more so if you don’t live in the area. Buy stories like this can signal a top.

Kiyosaki :) The Guy has made millions by telling people that the color of the sky is blue.

Tear down, rebuild and flip ! The car can stay :)

Please keep us updated about your journey. I am a Bay Area investor who wrapped up a portfolio of local investments over the last 10 years spread out between SF and South Bay. Mostly SFH and Condo types. My next foray will be OOS as well.

Do they pay you on time? Any other issues like drugs or gang activity? How do you collect your rent (cash or check)? Any collateral issues to worry about, like one of the hoodies showing up at your doorstep with a weapon etc?

Better to get more info from the city. There are a handful of those in the South Bay stalled because of litigation. One in downtown Sunnyvale just started reconstruction after 3 or 4 years of stoppage.

Zillow is a tech company so I am surprised why they would get into asset flipping turning themselves more into an investment company. That said no one can or should ignore that there are 90 million millennials in the US. Zero of them have reached the age of 35, which is typically the start of “high income/ wealth accumulation” period. I feel the prognosis for the housing market based on demographics alone is solid as the millennials mature, get married and buy homes. I can see why Zillow wants to own hard assets and flip.

Diane, that’s a good clip indeed and I can see that divergence between high and low end because there are always more people at the lower end, so significantly more traffic and a lot more demand. Plus millennials will often be the biggest renting population in SF and their affordability is less especially the younger portion (age 30 and below) of the population. I think this trend will get better in the next 2 - 3 years as millennials get into more of their higher earning years. Question is would they still want to rent in the city or buy in the suburbs or leave California entirely :)

Thank you @Bill F., calculated risk is awesome.

@Morgan Nilsen, That is a great insight, thank you. I agree, that the level of transparency is very important especially to western investors who are used to operating and investing in more organized markets. Definitely not an option for me either but always interesting to learn.