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42nate1
ParticipantSimilar reasons – I have a site visit this week with Sunrun (Costco) solar.
I’m getting about a 14kWh system. No out of pocket costs with the Costco membership & will finance at 1.49% for 20 years. It doesn’t make any sense to pay cash for it. It works out to be less than $150 per month, which is less than any monthly electric bill I had last year. Last 12 months was $3.4K with SDG&E – it makes sense to go solar.
Could get by with a smaller system, but will buy an EV this year & imagine both me & wife will be driving EVs by the end of the decade. Thinking ahead & future proofing. Did not opt for the battery wall. I can add it on later for about $10k, but I think most EV’s will have that capacity to power houses in an outage (or peak hours in the evening) later this decade.
Timing is right for me. 1.49% is less than inflation, so no urgency in paying it off.
best of luck.
ParticipantBought our condo in 2008 during the frenzy & sold it in early 2008. Didn’t make any money. It was a bad location, and 1st time buyer mistakes – terrible noise pollution. Did manage to get out right before the crash. Watched the new owner walk away from it after more than $100k loss. Just lucky timing on our part, and poor timing on theirs.
Rented for 2 years and bought a short sale 4-bedroom on a cul-de-sac in Carmel Mountain Ranch in 2010. Love the neighborhood, and great appreciation over the last decade. Not quite a double, but close. Will never sell, so value is really irrelevant. Without the crash, we probably couldn’t have afforded to buy into the neighborhood.
In 2012, we bought a 4-bedroom house as a rental in mira mesa. Wish we would have bought a few more. It’s more than doubled & is a cash cow for rental income.
Also bought a 1-bedroom condo in mira mesa around the same time for my mother-in-law. Some appreciation. Not a great purchase, but it was bought out of need, rather than an investment.
Mira Mesa (and surrounding area) no longer pencil out from a price/rent standpoint. Latest properties are up in Oceanside. Have picked up a duplex, a 3-plex in the last 5-6 years. Hunting for a 4-plex, but its getting much harder to find deals that make sense. Not even looking at single family anymore. More tenants create their own challenges, but they do cash flow the purchase.
How about others?
ParticipantZK. Enjoyed your career story. 18 year old me was offered that path when I was looking at joining the Air Force. I tested really well, so I guess I had the aptitude on paper. I turned it down because it required 6 years of service & I was not sure if I would like the military.
There was no one around that was giving me good advice at that point in my life. I took a different path that worked out well enough. Still, if I could go back in time, I would tell 18 year old me to take that opportunity.
Nice to hear that it would have been a fun career.
ParticipantI’ve replaced 3 tenants in the last 12 months.
-had to file an eviction & tenant left in January & new tenant moved in early February before COVID. No rent price change. Did lose a month rent & some damage. Very lucky to get that tenant out just before COVID.
-tenant got divorced. Moved out in March. I had a huge volume of interest during COVID and was able to increased rent $200. Surprisingly very easy.
-Tenant lost job due to COVID & left San Diego in August. I listed on Zillow after he gave notice. Received maybe 50-60 inquiries within days, and 12 applications without any tours. Tenant left on Tuesday, cleaned Wednesday, and new tenant moved in on Thursday. This was a long-term tenant & I increased rent $600.
Lack of adequate supply in SD means demand is strong. We were really unsure how long the house would be vacant with the divorced tenant.
Zillow is wonderful. It does the applications, credit check, background check & collects rent. I do chose my tenants carefully.
All tenants have paid every month during COVID.
We will see what the fall/winter brings as we move into traditional flu season.ParticipantMy wife and I have purchased multiple properties directly from owners without any agent on either side. Once a purchase agreement is signed & turned over to escrow, escrow does all the work. We live in San Diego, which is our target market.
It sounds simple, but it is not. The difficult part is identifying the property/owner & making initial contact to engage. If you can contact the owner, you may be able to make a deal. This strategy is further complicated by the low inventory. The owner knows that if the property is priced right, it will get multiple offers on day 1 of showing, and likely above asking price. Not a lot of incentive on the part of the owner to go through the effort to negotiate.
You need to identify a property that was priced incorrectly & has been lagging on the market. This may be a stubborn owner that does not want to lower the price.
The simplest way is to eliminate the buyer’s agent & negotiate directly with the seller’s agent.
Most of these strategies will fail. This is a numbers game so you need to mentally accept that you likely won’t get your targeted property.
It is mentally easier with rentals. We are looking at location, price & cash flow. We might put some effort into 30-50 properties before one becomes viable. That might translate into one property every 1-2 years.
If this is your primary residence, and you have found a property that meets all of your criteria & the price is reasonable, over the long-term, an amount slightly above your target price really won’t matter. It is a quality of life issue.
I would not consider these strategies for first-time buyers.
ParticipantGood news is my tenants paid this month. We will see what happens in May.
I had a property scheduled to be available April 1st. Was nervous about how long it would be available. It’s located in Rancho Bernardo (San Diego). I listed it for rent on Zillow one week prior. Interest was surprisingly strong. I had more than 40 people requesting to see it & 5 rental applications, sight unseen. I did an open house on 4/7 after cleaning & minor repairs. There was foot traffic much of the day, and I had three strong candidates by the end of the day. We executed a lease with the family we liked the most.
Common comments were that there wasn’t much inventory & anything nice got rented immediately.
For the sake of the economy, we have to begin getting back to work. More than 16 million unemployed in 3 weeks. The country can sustain a month or two, but small businesses will permanently close if longer.
My experience indicates the rental market is fine now. Those getting the stimulus check buys another month. If we are still here in June, the problems will get much worse.
April 12, 2020 at 12:10 PM in reply to: Los Angeles 1978, up in smoke, power, cops, tommy chong’s prison stint #816430ParticipantI actually went and saw Cheech & Chong up in Temecula in 2019. They did a reunion at a local casino.
I figured it would be the only chance to ever see them live, considering their age.14 year old me found them hilarious. I had many of their cassettes, and watched their movies. Late 40’s me didn’t find 80 year old men telling d*ck jokes and talking about getting high very funny.
The best part of the show was just understanding that as old as they are, they were still able to pull together a show for an hour and hit their lines and keep it entertaining.
As an adult, I listen to their old skits & realize they were poking fun at the issues of their time (1970’s). That completely went over my head as a teenager.
ParticipantRecessions come – they always do. The unknown is when. Unless the Coronavirus turns into a pandemic, the US is not going to go into a recession this year.
I am looking forward to the next recession. I have a long list of stocks I want to buy on sale.
My goal is also to buy a small apartment complex in the next recession. I was fortunate enough to buy two properties in 2008-2010. Not smart enough to aggressively buy more. Have bought some other properties since then. They cash flow, but missed the big appreciation gains.
I love the though of “one and done”. A small complex at the right price point, and I don’t need to ever purchase another property again.
Still have not figured out the down payment portion of this goal. I need a few more years.
ParticipantRecessions come – they always do. The unknown is when. Unless the Coronavirus turns into a pandemic, the US is not going to go into a recession this year.
I am looking forward to the next recession. I have a long list of stocks I want to buy on sale.
My goal is also to buy a small apartment complex in the next recession. I was fortunate enough to buy two properties in 2008-2010. Not smart enough to aggressively buy more. Have bought some other properties since then. They cash flow, but missed the big appreciation gains.
I love the though of “one and done”. A small complex at the right price point, and I don’t need to ever purchase another property again.
Still have not figured out the down payment portion of this goal. I need a few more years.
ParticipantTook possession yesterday.
Certainly some damage, but they didn’t destroy the place. Driveway & street next to house completely saturated with oil. Not sure what can be done. I expect its permanent in the driveway.Re-keyed all locks.
Got trash out of the house & had a company do a move-out cleaning.
Handyman begins tomorrow on repairs.Will start advertising for move-in ready next week.
Definitely screening carefully going forward.I got lucky.
ParticipantTenant has agreed to move out tomorrow, leave the keys in the kitchen & text me when they vacate.
I told them if they leave, they do not owe any rent for January & I will cancel the eviction process. This is a great outcome!“IF” (big if) they leave Sunday night, will change the locks and assess the damage & work required to rehabilitate to get it ready to rent again. Coordinating with my repair guy & a cleaning service.
Fingers crossed that I dodged an expensive bullet.
ParticipantThe transaction/timing was just because we were working directly with the seller. My wife found the property, and we agreed upon the transaction outside of the MLS. We’ve done these type of purchases before. While in escrow, we told the seller we were looking for a renter, and the price we were looking for. He said he would ask around, and came back with a tenant shortly after which agreed upon our price.
That the tenant was immediately ready to move in should have been a red flag…
I don’t think the seller intentionally did this to us. Ultimately it is our fault for not following our standard due diligence.
Participant@ FlyierInHi,
there are other issues i’m hearing about from neighbors which violate the lease on multiple counts. I do not have proof like you mention above, so the non-payment of rent seems like the easiest. That is the route I went with.
Good to know on the habitability assertion. Tenant only notified me of one issue in the first month, which was fixed the next day.
Sad part is, we actually spent quite a lot of money doing repairs & upgrades to the place. I assume the tenant will break everything on their way out.
Can’t wait to see the lawyer tomorrow.
thanksParticipantI did not include a copy of the lease with the 3-day notice. It’s sited in their response with the habitability issues.
I’m visiting a lawyer tomorrow to see what I have to do to get them out of my house.
I hope I can just start over having the lawyer send out the 3-day notice and go from there.
I really don’t care about the rent. I just want them out to limit my losses.
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