Good point, this is going to be a BIG problem in the near future.

Renters should probably be more concerned with landlords putting the house/condo on the market for sale rather than getting foreclosed on.

I can speak from experience!!! Know your rights as a renter!!! The owner can sell their property at any time, but as a renter, you have rights to “peaceful enjoyment of the property”. The gray area during the sale… lock box? open house? caravans? etc. Most standard leases, including the one used by the California Realtors Association protect the rights of the landlord, not the renter.

If you are signing a lease, ask your landlord if they have intentions of selling during your lease. If they say no, put it in writing on your lease with addendums like: no lock box, no open house, no caravans and the key addendum… no showings without and accepted written offer. You can also specify a rent reduction if they put the house on the market. If they refuse these requests, then be leery.

I believe if you signed a lease whomever takes control of the house would have to abide to the terms. Isn’t hard to kick renters out in CA? The fb next door had some deadbeats that were in the house 5-6 months without paying before they got evicted. I did see the fb drive away with the evicted tenents two jet skis.

It’s amazing the kinds of risks investors would take to own rental property. Making sure one is cash flow positive is the only way to own rentals.

If you have a lease, there’s nothing much the owner can do until the lease expires. The owner can put a for sale sign but you don’t have to allow strangers into “your” home. With a lease the house is “your” home for the lease period. The owner can sell the house, but you can remain.
I’m sure that a real estate lawyer would confirm that. If I were a renter, I’d just sit tight.

Us renters will help prop up house prices in the near future. I’m talking about those of us who sold at the peak (2004-06) and now are renting and sitting on large piles of cash. I don’t think we are in the majority by any stretch of the imagination, but we’ll start buying at some point (the smart ones will wait more than only 3 or 5 years).

This is why it is said that speculators actually provide a public service by making markets less volatile… See, by selling at the peak we made the peak a little less, and by purchasing on the way down, we’ll make the trough less deep.

When we taught this in a microeconomics class in college, many kids were shocked: they had been taught that speculators are always evil people. The point is that markets work, and capitalism explains why some countries end up like Cuba or the late USSR, and why others end up super rich like the USA.

Heck, yea!

I’m renting from someone who quit his job so he could wheel-and-deal full time in the LA RE market as an agent and a loan officer. The place I’m in is heavily leveraged (an 80/20 no-down deal that was re-fi’d to get funds for other purchases) and my rent is only about 60% of the monthly PITI expense. He’s got four other properites like this and he bought a new construction SFR for about $1M last year. I know all this becasue his wife is a little too loose with her tounge when it comes to their dealings…I think that she thinks that she’s showing how smart he is.

Last year my rent checks cleared about 14 days after they were sent. Since May my rent checks have been clearing 1 or 2 days after they were sent…hmmmm.

But I’m not worried. He’s still making money hand over fist selling homes and doing re-fi’s, right?

I got out of the LA market and sold in summer 2003 when I saw that things were going crazy and I made 100K on the SFR I bought in 1997. Hindsight’s 20/20 but any profit’s better than no profit and I thought that things wouldn’t climb much higher back then.

I had these same concerns when my wife and I were looking for a place to rent just recently. The last thing I wanted to do was end up in a place where

1. The house would be foreclosed on
2. The owner would try to sell it while we’re living in it
3. The owner would be so desperate to make their payments that I’d see big increases in rent.

So, when we were looking, I used the public records information (via MLS) to find out when the places were bought, for how much, and how much was mortgaged.

My wife and I lucked out and found a great place in Torrey Highlands where the owner put up a large downpayment for the place. We’re paying under the comps for rent. I ran the numbers and it looks like after mortgage, HOAs, taxes, etc., he’s still profiting pretty well every month. And the previous tenants who were there for 2.5 years said he never raised the rent, and in fact, didn’t even raise it for us from what they were paying.

So, I’m definitely not worried. The owner did mention he may want to sell in a couple of years. Personally, I think he’ll change his mind when he sees that the value of his house is below his purchase price by that time.