During my visit to Troy, NY, I was enchanted, as usual, by the large number of stunning old brick industrial buildings sitting vacant along the Hudson River. These buildings are the kind that developers die for… brick (in an area with no earthquakes!), high ceilings, original casement windows, etc. You can take buildings like those and … Continue reading “Some thoughts on my visit to Troy”
Author: Moses Kagan
Santa Monica’s dumb anti-AirBnB legislation
Am traveling right now (to attend my father’s retirement party – 43 years teaching at RPI!) so am going to keep this brief. Santa Monica is close to passing a law that would effectively ban sh0rt-term rentals where the owner of the property is not present. So, basically, you can rent out a room in … Continue reading “Santa Monica’s dumb anti-AirBnB legislation”
Here’s an email I got yesterday
Hi Moses and Jon- My boyfriend and I are gearing up to move into a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment in the Silver Lake/Echo Park/Los Feliz area. We’ve spent the past couple of months looking at apartments to get a feel for what’s out there, and every time we found one that we liked, we’ve … Continue reading “Here’s an email I got yesterday”
Adding density without changing LA (too much)
Rapidly rising rents over the past 3-4 years have sparked a lot of conversation about the effect of housing costs on poverty rates. We are pretty sensitive on this issue, because our business is basically about raising rents. But we and everyone else in our business are responding to market forces. Simply put: LA is … Continue reading “Adding density without changing LA (too much)”
Looking back at a miss
Periodically, I write pieces on here about how our knowledge of achievable rents cycles back into our acquisition process. Wanted to give you a concrete example. There’s a deal we looked at several months ago that sold in the $700-750k range. At the time, not knowing as much about achievable rents, we thought the deal … Continue reading “Looking back at a miss”
What you could learn from a wild-catter
Recently, I’ve found myself repeating the same piece of advice over and over, so I’m going to share it here. The context is as follows: Someone comes to me for help in optimizing her real estate business. He wants to figure out how to generate more revenue per deal or how to do more deals in … Continue reading “What you could learn from a wild-catter”
How big property management companies improve the world
As our management company grows, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how we affect the communities in which we work. Obviously, property management companies don’t have great reputations. Most people would probably prefer to rent from a nice, local mom-and-pop type who might occasionally forget to raise the rent, instead of a faceless corporation … Continue reading “How big property management companies improve the world”
A dumb piece about Detroit
From time to time, I check in at Gawker, where the editors have recently taken to publishing anti-gentrification screeds. Yesterday’s piece about Detroit is a classic, a model of the art. Peter Moskowitz, the author, spends a bunch of time criticizing Detroit for allocating its scarce resources to the downtown area at the expense of the … Continue reading “A dumb piece about Detroit”
Welcome to the week of short posts
We got a deal that I think I really like over the weekend. However, the diligence period is only three days. There’s an unbelievable amount to cover in these three days: Physical inspections Reviewing leases, estoppels, rent roll, etc. Reviewing the permit records Compiling a construction budget for the rehab Confirming our pro forma rents … Continue reading “Welcome to the week of short posts”
Thinking about my future
Have been doing some thinking lately about what my career is likely to look like when it’s all said and done. There are several way I can see it going, from continuing to do pretty much what we’re doing now, through building large apartment buildings all over the country. The common denominator in all of … Continue reading “Thinking about my future”