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Take the amount you put into the transaction, then the amount you got out of it. The difference is taxable income. Doesn’t seem too hard if it was all in the same calendar year.

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We won’t know the dangers and social effects of people being able to smoke 80% THC process pot, cheaply and legally whenever they want, for a few years.

THC content historically was 5 to 10%. In new GMO strains up to 20%. And it can be purified to 100%.

Physical burn-out of the brain’s cannabinoid receptors seems like a real risk. Speed users permanently mess up their dopamine receptors, leading to parkinson’s type effects decades later, even if they stop completely.

I’d like a ban on all weed shop advertising, other than some very minimal ones that provide the physical location. Or even better, a government monopoly and high prices that deter heavy use.

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Interesting Esco, sounds like the variable rate and 10.9% ROE is the way to go.

Worst case is rates go up in few years because we never get the recession everyone expects, but you’ll have more equity and higher rents by then.

They’ve dropped 0.29% from their peak last month and are the lowest since mid-September.

The fundamentals that drove rates down are still here: lots of rich people who save rather than spend all over the world chasing too few low-risk investments.

Trump’s tax cut mostly went to the wealthy, who barely increased their consumption and instead put their cuts into investment markets, prestige real estate, and increased loanable funds.

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I have seen listings use the year of complete renovation and also not do so.

Better be disclosed that at least some of the house isn’t 2018 before taking a deposit.

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Henry, thanks for the good news.

Such a strange formula that is used to decide the limit, we got a bigger boost for 2019 despite 2018’s price increase being pretty moderate compared to a few years ago.

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Raise the gas tax up another $3 and then use the funds for transit and to cut the income tax.

California’s stupidist tax is the business property tax on furniture. The County wants me to tell them the current deprecated value of my business’s furniture and PCs each year so they can tax 1% of it.

Are they kidding? No. I just paid $125 based on their own estimate of $12500. Which is way too high but who cares.

It isn’t the money, it is the presumption of wasting every business owner’s time to collect a pittance.

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Rents still rising:

“As of September, average rent increased 5.74 percent in a year. That’s down from 6.36 percent in 2017 and 8.4 percent in 2016. MarketPointe has been producing the report, which comes out twice a year, for more than two decades.”

Not as fast as SF. We are now officially half the price for SF on both 1 and 2 bedrooms.

USC Study: San Diego rents will continue to increase by another 10.6% over 2019 and 2020, vacancies will continue to be low:

“By 2020, average monthly rents are expected to increase over their 2018 levels by $52 in Orange County, $209 in San Diego County, and $78 in the Inland Empire, according to a study by USC Lusk Center for Real Estate in partnership with Beacon Economics. The rise means that few units in Southern California will be affordable, a release from a representative of USC Lusk says.

Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center, who co-authored the study, is quoted in the release as saying, “There is a poor match between people’s housing cost and incomes right now, and no amount of sorting will, by itself, fix this issue. One of the striking results we found is that where vacancy has increased slightly, there is a relief in rental increases.” His conclusion? “The way to raise vacancy rates is to build more.”

According to the report, the homeownership rate in Orange County has historically been higher than in other nearby counties, and Orange County has the highest vacancy rate among all Southern California metro markets, due in large part to several years of elevated multifamily construction levels. With population growth and income gains continuing and the pace of construction slowing, the market will continue to be tight and rents will trend upward, the report predicts. Average rent in Orange County in 2018 is $2,035, with a 4.14 percent vacancy rate; by 2020, the average rent is expected to be $2,087, with a 4.56 percent vacancy rate, the report says.

The report also finds that San Diego County’s economy has grown strongly in recent years, with job growth until this year, ranging between 2 percent and 3 percent annually. For the metro area as a whole, the vacancy rate in 2018 remains unchanged at 3.9 percent from the year prior, according to the report. “San Diego County can expect continuous economic and population growth over the foreseeable future,” the report states. “The economy’s leading sectors will continue to draw a variety of workers. Additionally, the region is perennially attractive to older members of the population, including retirees. In turn, there will be continued housing demand in both the renter and owner-occupied markets, and rents will continue to increase as vacancy rates remain low.”

Current average rent in San Diego is $1,978 average rent with a 3.94 percent vacancy rate, according to the report. The average rent in the market is predicted to be $2,187 by 2020, with a 3.75 percent vacancy rate.”

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City counsel just voted 8-1 to repeal this stupid law.

AirBNB for everybody!

Zapf, I will remember you voting against my property rights and values if you ever run for anything else.

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I think you would do better with a condo or townhouse in a market you know better and close to where you live. Momentum is slowing, but the stock crash will be the end of rising rates and the fundamentals in San Diego are still great.

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Big Ag is less than 5% of the economy in Cal and the SW, but uses 80% of the water, which it pays close to nothing for.

If there is ever a serious drought, the majority living in metro areas will claim that water. As they should, because it is a public resource they are willing to pay for more money for.

For this reason, Vegas will never run out of water needed for its service-economy growth.

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Self driving cars are closer than we think. Self driving Ubers might not make many of us give up cars, but think about:

1. Elderly people who make 1-2 car trips per week and 1000 miles a year.

2. Married couples in apartments who have 2 cars but only one off-street spot.

3. People who walk/bike/transit to work, but have a car for errands

4. College students who keep their high school car at their parents’ house to use for visits/summer only.

The point is, there are many marginal car owners who can realisticly give them up once there are self-driving Ubers. Rich people, people with children, people who do a lot of home improvement work, people who love driving, etc would be the groups who wouldn’t give up private car ownership.

Nonetheless, I could see in the medium term future the number of privately owned cars go down by more than 25% in San Diego. The average private car is parked 23 hours a day and needs an average of two parking spots. There is really some amazing potential to use urban and inner-suburban land in more productive ways as private car ownership declines. The self-driving cars can be on the road 18 hours, and then sleep/recharge at night when demand is low in a solar powered garage off the 8 in El Cajon.

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You are hoping for a “passive” return of 10-15k on an outlay of 50-80k. That suggests a return of, at lowest, 12.5% (10k on 80k).

If there were a lot of investments like this, REITs that can borrow money easily at 5-6% would buy them all up. But they don’t, because properties that suggest a double digit cash flow have serious risks, most commonly declining rental market and deferred maintenance. All over middle america there are completely abandoned apartment buildings. The reason they were abandoned rather than sold is that even at a price of 0, the rent doesn’t cover basic expenses like tax and maintenance.

A Californian with 80k trying to get buy an apartment building out of state with no landlord experience is a target to get ripped off.

This is all academic though. It is just obviously a bad idea for so many reasons, and you are not likely to find financing.

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You won’t get a 20% mortgage for a low end out of state investment property

Your expectations on returns, even if you could, are unrealistic.

The market is pretty rational. Buildings that appear to have really high cash flow have substantial deferred maintenance and/or are in declining rental markets.

Management of out of state low end apartments is a potential nightmare.

I suggest you look into buying another condo or house and renting your current one out. You will get a better mortgage that way.

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My house is more than 100 years old and has a large insulated attic you can stand up in, no crawl space.

One 15k btu AC for the living room and 8k in the bedrooms works OK for now. Half the time I run them in dehumidify mode rather than cool, it is only the 80F+humidity days that get to me.

The home automation I would really like is a “summer night” mode that around 10pm would open all the windows, turn on all the fans, and let the cool summer night air circulate, then seal thinks back up at 9am.

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This year I kept the AC off until Aug 1. I am 10 min walk from the beach though.

Heat is a single gas wall heater, no ducts except for exhaust, AC is two window units.

Lately I have been running the bedroom AC all night, this morning I woke up to a very dry 64 degree bedroom, it was wonderful.

I like turning off and then lighting the heater pilot light to mark the change of seasons. I also move the water heater to the lowest setting in summer and almost to the max in winter.

My office suite has huge glass windows that don’t open, and my electric bill for it rises to $350 in the summer compared to $100 in the spring.

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