Owning a house in California video
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My biggest fear about renting a home in one of these big cities would be squatters. Once you get a squatter in there they've got all the rights.
How long before the government just takes over the rental business in California? It doesn't make sense to be a landlord in California or any of these far left states.
How long before the government just takes over the rental business in California? It doesn't make sense to be a landlord in California or any of these far left states.
He discusses several things I didn’t know were things.
Yeah, me neither. I listened to the whole thing and didn't know most of that.
The rules he's talking about are exclusive to Santa Monica Ca where they've had rent control in place for a long time. Dumbass should have done his due diligence before dropping thay kind of $$$ on a property.
I use to do business with that city it's always an interesting proposition. On one occasion i was demonstrating a wheel loader to public works I show a 7am and had to wait until the crew did their mandatory exercises for the morning.
Once they finished I asked them if they were allowed to eat the donuts I brought them.
I've been a landlord for a long time in a couple of different Ca cities. Never once did I evict anyone or ever not been paid for rent. Heard some great sob stories and kept a few deposits. Rent in Ca is stupid expensive current tenant pays $3,600 for a 2000 Sq 4 br house built in 1989
I use to do business with that city it's always an interesting proposition. On one occasion i was demonstrating a wheel loader to public works I show a 7am and had to wait until the crew did their mandatory exercises for the morning.
Once they finished I asked them if they were allowed to eat the donuts I brought them.
I've been a landlord for a long time in a couple of different Ca cities. Never once did I evict anyone or ever not been paid for rent. Heard some great sob stories and kept a few deposits. Rent in Ca is stupid expensive current tenant pays $3,600 for a 2000 Sq 4 br house built in 1989
Take this video with a grain of salt. As said before his house is located in the worst possible city. He bought on emotion not sound business sense.
I started buying rentals here in Ca in the late 80s. We started with a separated pair of houses. Figured if one was empty the other still paid the mortgage. We learned quickly how the eviction process works when one of our first tenants needed to be evicted. They paid first and last and never paid again. They even bragged to our other tenants that this is what they do and drag out the process because they knew the system. It took us 3 months to get them out. They did leave one of their cars on the property and at 12:01am on the day after the deadline I towed the car. We learned how to do a lien sale and got a substantial amount of money owed back. We own 6 rentals and in 35 yrs have done 3 evictions. None in the last 25 yrs. With all 3 I’ve gotten a vehicle from them that paid some of the costs. I tow them to my secure storage lot and by the time they try to get them back the legal storage fees start to add up. It usually takes 45 days for an eviction if everything goes well. We do everything ourselves except we need a 3rd party to process server them. They allways seem to wait untill the last possible minute to leave. My city doesn’t have rent control but we have to pay a bullshit fee and have to keep the exterior at a higher standard compared to a owner occupied house. Of course this fee is ultimately paid by the renters. We also have a small 37 unit RV storage lot at my play shop and in 25 yrs we’ve only had 1 stop paying fees. Turns out they weren’t paying the bank also and we got a substantial Finders Fee for turning them in for repo.
Bottom line being a landlord anywhere is not as easy as people think. You do lose rights to the tenants. We’ve had our share of trashed houses to repair. You don’t just get to put the rent money in your pocket. I’m in the process of putting on a new roof on one of my rentals and that will eat up 6 months of rent. The saving grace for us is I do the majority of maintenance and the wife does all the administrative work. It’s a long term game lots of ups and downs. But we’ve got 6 paid off properties out of it and it allowed me to retire at 56.
I started buying rentals here in Ca in the late 80s. We started with a separated pair of houses. Figured if one was empty the other still paid the mortgage. We learned quickly how the eviction process works when one of our first tenants needed to be evicted. They paid first and last and never paid again. They even bragged to our other tenants that this is what they do and drag out the process because they knew the system. It took us 3 months to get them out. They did leave one of their cars on the property and at 12:01am on the day after the deadline I towed the car. We learned how to do a lien sale and got a substantial amount of money owed back. We own 6 rentals and in 35 yrs have done 3 evictions. None in the last 25 yrs. With all 3 I’ve gotten a vehicle from them that paid some of the costs. I tow them to my secure storage lot and by the time they try to get them back the legal storage fees start to add up. It usually takes 45 days for an eviction if everything goes well. We do everything ourselves except we need a 3rd party to process server them. They allways seem to wait untill the last possible minute to leave. My city doesn’t have rent control but we have to pay a bullshit fee and have to keep the exterior at a higher standard compared to a owner occupied house. Of course this fee is ultimately paid by the renters. We also have a small 37 unit RV storage lot at my play shop and in 25 yrs we’ve only had 1 stop paying fees. Turns out they weren’t paying the bank also and we got a substantial Finders Fee for turning them in for repo.
Bottom line being a landlord anywhere is not as easy as people think. You do lose rights to the tenants. We’ve had our share of trashed houses to repair. You don’t just get to put the rent money in your pocket. I’m in the process of putting on a new roof on one of my rentals and that will eat up 6 months of rent. The saving grace for us is I do the majority of maintenance and the wife does all the administrative work. It’s a long term game lots of ups and downs. But we’ve got 6 paid off properties out of it and it allowed me to retire at 56.
I'm ignorant to this whole thing, but how do squatters get involved?
I read through the lines in the dudes video he's created some click bait to promote a credit card.
You are absolutely right if being a landlord is easy everybody would do it.
I once had a tenant leave a car and some junk in the garage. My solution was to push the POS car in the street load it up with the crap then report it as abandoned. Police came by 3 days later a tow company hauled it away.
I'm now in the short term rental game with one house listed on Airbnb. Not a great money maker but it pays for itself even when I use it 6 months out of the year.
Never had a squatter issue. All my rentals are with in 2 miles of my home and I keep a close watch on them. I don’t put up with any shit. The first eviction took 90 days the other 2 took 45. My wife handles the tenants if I’m involved it’s No Bueno for them. We’ve learned how to judge people. We make sure they have good jobs that they won’t want to leave if we have to garnish their wages. All our current tenants have been with us for yrs. We had one who moved out and my Wife commented that he paid for the total cost of the house in the time he was there. We keep our rentals in first class shape as if we lived in them, our rents are just below market rate and we don’t raise the rents unless our costs go up so people tend to stay unless they have life changes.
I have no problems getting physical with any type of squatter if the issue arose. I have a way of communicating with people the lets them know that leaving is in their best interests. We have not had an issue for over 20 yrs.
I do get the occasional homeless person wondering back to my shop. When they see me grab my baseball bat they all turn and run.
I was talking to a friend about this a while back.
I told him that if I was renting a house and someone decided to squat in it, I'd grab some friends, we would go down there and physically remove them. If they came back we'd be in the house and I'd simply tell the cops that this guy is a crazy hobo who is making up stories and he was never in the house in the first place.
I always laugh when I read these stories about squatters in the news and homeowners not being able to do anything about it. Why not go down there and physically remove them yourself?
I told him that if I was renting a house and someone decided to squat in it, I'd grab some friends, we would go down there and physically remove them. If they came back we'd be in the house and I'd simply tell the cops that this guy is a crazy hobo who is making up stories and he was never in the house in the first place.
I always laugh when I read these stories about squatters in the news and homeowners not being able to do anything about it. Why not go down there and physically remove them yourself?
That is EXACTLY the approach we take as well. Rent a bit below market rate, don't raise the rent unnecessarily, take care of the property, encourage long term tenants.
You've done very well. A long time ago I told my wife, when she was complaining about tenants messing stuff up, "you have to remember they're buying us a building". The other thought that I stress to new landlords is to never, ever count on that rent money. As soon as you depend on it, something will happen. Rentals are no different than any other business, you don't start off making money. I bought my first duplex in 1985 and a triplex in 1994, didn't make a lot of money for a long time, what we did make we put back into them. I did all my own repairs and we did all the cleaning. The depreciation was helpful though during our high earning years. Plus the real estate tends to help balance your investments like ballast in a ship caught in a storm when the stock market tanks. I heard an investment advisor say once that real estate is like a ball & chain around your leg and at times it feels that way but in the long run I'm really glad I stuck it out. Not sure if I would have if I hadn't been able to do my own repairs and remodels which saved me a ton.
Paid everything off in 2020 and retired.
Believe it or not in the 40 years I've owned the first duplex this past year was the worst with one vacant from June 1 to yesterday and the other vacant on July 1 and still vacant, plus I had to replace one of the AC units. I've had a few nasty evictions but since I started using an agent for showings and lease ups I've had good tenants. Costs me a months rent up front but better in the long run, and I don't have the ability to do credit checks.
Sounds like you've got a a good setup, wish I'd have thought about RV storage when I was buying, sounds way easier than dealing with live in tenants and the RV market really boomed after 2019. The guy we bought our motorhome from has one covered RV storage facility in Scottsdale and was building a second one. If I recall he was getting $300/month for covered spaces.
Cheers!
In the many years of self management my wife and I had an agreememt. I was the PP person dealing with people and the problems and she does all the paperwork. I'm also a strong believer in being slightly below market rate and keeping the houses in excellent condition it seems to help with getting a good amount of applicants to choose from. I haven't used any services for credit checks or background either. I feel If I can get an applicant to start talking and I sit back and listen they'll pretty much tell you everything you need to make a decision. The wife is also pretty good at looking at the applicants and family members social media. Since we moved out of state we hired a property management company and the fees are reasonable and they have great contacts for coordinating repairs with the tenants.
Funny story the management company had showed our place to a couple and were really excited they had an applicant who claimed 20K in monthly income my wife did a basic internet search on the husband turns out he was crooked as hell not paying his employees or suppliers had a bunch of tax liens the management company asked how we found this out
We simply said we searched his name and current address.
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