Regular readers know I deal mainly in apartment buildings between 2-20 units. In doing so, I run across all kinds of issues, including missing financial records, bad leases, lack of estoppels, un-permitted construction, city violations, etc. Many of these problems just don’t exist when you deal with larger assets. That’s because larger assets tend to … Continue reading “Wading through crap”
Author: Moses Kagan
Deadlines and documents
When we write offers for apartment buildings, we usually want a 17-21 day loan contingency. The concept is to give us some assurance that we will be able to get the loan we want before we irrevocably commit to doing the deal. Pretty standard. But lately, I’ve been running into the same problem over and over … Continue reading “Deadlines and documents”
Why I don’t love 1031 exchanges
We’ve talked a bit about 1031 exchanges before, but here’s a re-cap: 1031 is a tax loophole designed to allow a seller to avoid paying capital gains tax on a property when he sells To do so, seller sells his property and has escrow transfer his equity to a so-called 1031 facilitator Then, seller has … Continue reading “Why I don’t love 1031 exchanges”
Brokers… can’t live with ’em
Just ran across a listing which has been sitting on the market for a month in Northeast LA. The listing puts the price at $1,250,000 and the square footage at 2,170 sq ft. That’s $576 / sq ft, which is ridiculous, even in today’s inflated market. I decided, on a whim, to look the property … Continue reading “Brokers… can’t live with ’em”
Everyone is stealing
If you ever think what we do is sit behind the desk and jockey spreadsheets, you’re wrong. Recently, we’ve been dealing with a rash of thefts by low-lifes. Heres a partial list of things that have been stolen from our projects over the past month or so: New copper plumbing and new electrical wires from one … Continue reading “Everyone is stealing”
A vote of confidence
Had a great phone call today that I’m going to brag about. Sue me. A guy who runs a fairly large brokerage office called me asking for advice. He has a client who wants to list a medium-sized apartment building and the broker doesn’t really know anything about doing multifamily sales. He got my name … Continue reading “A vote of confidence”
Growing the team
An update for those of you following our progress in building the Adaptive Realty team: We’ve added a new property manager, Ignacio, who will be responsible for overseeing all of our existing apartment properties and assisting Jon with the properties we have under construction. We’ve added a new leasing agent, Bana, who will be handling … Continue reading “Growing the team”
My current inspiration
David Walentas of Two Trees Management. Who’s that? Walentas was in the business as small-time owner / developer in NY in the 1970s. Then, in the early 1980s, he made a deal to buy a bunch of warehouses in a then-ignored part of Brooklyn called DUMBO (“Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass”) for something like … Continue reading “My current inspiration”
Lessons from the bust
We finished selling the Better Dwellings portfolio in December. I have been dealing with getting all of the cash out to the investors, closing the entities, providing a final accounting, etc. This has, of course, occasioned some thinking about our strategy during 2008-2010, when the world was falling apart. Here are some of the lessons … Continue reading “Lessons from the bust”
FHA deals are still possible (I think)
A very good agent who works with me, Marcus, got a client of ours into an FHA deal on a fourplex last week. Does the property need work? Yes. Is it in the best location in the world? No. Is the buyer going to make a lot of money on the deal? Almost certainly, yes. … Continue reading “FHA deals are still possible (I think)”