Want to pick up on something I wrote a few days ago. I mentioned that one of the attractions for Lucy and me about buying and living in a small apartment building is that it will allow us to get by on one salary for as long as our kids need Lucy to be home. One … Continue reading “Let a small apartment building set you free”
Author: Moses Kagan
My kind of bad
Late last week, Jon and I took the whole team to walk-through a real P.O.S. building in Echo Park that I’m very excited to try to buy. Here’s a representative picture: Note the trash everywhere and the broken wall where someone stole the electrical wires to sell for drug money. Obviously, I fell in love … Continue reading “My kind of bad”
Now everyone loves Silver Lake
Hat tip to Adrian over at Curbed for noticing that CNN Money ranked Silver Lake as one of the country’s best big city neighborhoods. I think the CNN Money piece misses some of the most important things about the neighborhood: The combination of relatively dense, multifamily zoning south of Sunset and relatively sparsely populated single … Continue reading “Now everyone loves Silver Lake”
Be a good steward
One of the challenges of being a property owner is figuring out how much to spend maintaining / improving your building. There is a permanent temptation to keep costs down by papering over problems. You can almost always find a cheap way to fix whatever problem has arisen. And, short term, you probably won’t notice … Continue reading “Be a good steward”
A bit of unwanted public art
The Eastsider recently published an article about a gang injunction being proposed for Echo Park and a few surrounding neighborhoods. The comment thread got very heated, in part because there is at least one group that opposes the injunction as some kind of tool of oppression / gentrification. Other local residents responded that they’ve noticed … Continue reading “A bit of unwanted public art”
Getting to know the brokers
I do a large number of relatively small deals. I do this because that’s the part of the market where there a mis-priced / poorly managed assets that present opportunities for me and my investors to make money. The downside is that I end up doing a lot of deals with brokers I’ve never met. … Continue reading “Getting to know the brokers”
Just missed
I was trying to buy a small office building in East Hollywood. Because it was a former gas station, we were concerned it was contaminated. I spent an enormous amount of time trying to structure a deal that would put the risk on the owner, not me. Eventually, it became clear I couldn’t do it … Continue reading “Just missed”
A testimonial
One of my agents, Bana Haffar, just closed a very difficult deal on a 4plex in Mid City for one of our clients, a very successful, busy guy who was looking to lock in a great interest rate on an income property in a gentrifying part of LA. Thought you might be interested in the … Continue reading “A testimonial”
How we benefit from being local
Adaptive is a weird company, in the sense that we do a ton of deals in very small area (basically, from East Hollywood through Silver Lake, Echo Park, and over into Highland Park). Why do we limit ourselves like this? Surely there are other places where it’s easier to find screwed-up apartment buildings to buy… … Continue reading “How we benefit from being local”
Sell it vacant
If you have a beat-up, rent controlled building that you’re considering selling and a vacancy opens up, DON’T FILL IT. Here’s why: Unless you spend a lot of money fixing up the building before you rent it, you’re not going to get top dollar from the new tenant; So, you’re going to have someone in … Continue reading “Sell it vacant”