When you run a small business, you always have to keep two different things in mind: What you are doing to produce revenue right now; and How to steer the company towards more revenue / higher margins over the long term As many of you know, we’re involved in several different businesses, each with its … Continue reading “Growing Adaptive”
Author: Moses Kagan
The problem with fences
Just returned to LA and one of the things that jumped out at me as I was driving Kinglsey to school this AM is how much horrible fencing there is all over our city. You know what kind of fencing I mean: Cheap, metal, and utilitarian. Another way to describe it would be “anti-human” – it … Continue reading “The problem with fences”
Why I (almost) always ask for retrofit
In Los Angeles, the law requires that every building that changes hands needs to have low-flow toilets and shower-heads installed in the bathrooms (to preserve water). The law is enforced by means of a single form that is required to be completed prior to close wherein a contractor, licensed plumber or real estate agent attests … Continue reading “Why I (almost) always ask for retrofit”
The miracle of the farmers’ market
Have spent the last week or so in Troy, NY, where I grew up. To give you a sense for how Troy was when I lived here: When NY de-institutionalized most of its mentally-ill population in the 1970s as a result of Geraldo Rivera’s investigations into the Willow Brook facility, a disproportionate share of the inmates … Continue reading “The miracle of the farmers’ market”
Troy real estate v. LA real estate
Am in Troy, NY with the b0ys visiting my folks. Driving around, you can see tons of boarded up old buildings, many of them beautiful old row houses. This would never happen in LA, because the demand for housing is so high that no one leaves anything vacant for long, absent some major issue with … Continue reading “Troy real estate v. LA real estate”
An embarrassing admission (about zoning… calm down)
I have been helping a client who is looking at buying a small piece of land to potentially develop. The lot is roughly 8,500 sq ft and zoned R2. I reviewed my trusty Los Angeles zoning summary, found the R2 row, looked over to the sq ft per unit column, saw “2,500” and figured you could … Continue reading “An embarrassing admission (about zoning… calm down)”
Creating an arts space
Recently, I’ve been mulling the idea of buying an industrial building and cutting it up into affordable artist studios. I have observed that these kinds of deals can work pretty well if you get the property very cheaply and keep your renovation costs low. You obviously also have to be in an interesting area… but we … Continue reading “Creating an arts space”
Overbuilding in Glendale
Big developers make money by building huge projects. Therefore, they make choices about where to build based more on where they can, as opposed to where they should build. In LA, the result of this kind of thinking is the apartment building boom currently going on in just three neighborhoods: Hollywood, Downtown, and Glendale. There are … Continue reading “Overbuilding in Glendale”
Crime and design
Our go-to moves when we renovate older buildings include radically expanding the windows and adding sliding doors. Check out this picture I snapped in an eight unit project of ours nearing completion: It’s pretty obvious why we do this: More light (which is why the rest of the shot looks so dark!) and creating a flow … Continue reading “Crime and design”
Apologies
We’re absolutely slammed right now with deals, renovation projects, and capital raising. It’s kind of a curse of this blog that some of the most interesting things we do can’t be shared here because they would give away information to our competitors, create competition for deals we want to buy, screw up deals we’re trying … Continue reading “Apologies”