You know how California is, it is so amazing we have more people than housing. And instead of building up, which is starting to happen more, we think of a way to make existing square footage and street house more people. In January of 2020, ADU (Additional Dwelling Unit) and JADU (Junior Additional Dwelling Unit) became more mandated and allowed by the government for the cities to figure out. What does this mean and what does this look like? Let's break this down one by one: Additional Dwelling Unit - Detached The simplest way to separate them is Detached versus Attached. For this example, we will use a decent sized lot with a house in front and a small back house in the back. The back house would be the ADU. If you were leasing both homes out, you would receive two rents as the owner. Junior Additional Dwelling Unit - Attached A JADU is usually smaller than an ADU and attached to the home in question. For this example, imagine you have a 3 bedroom 2 bath home with a large ...

Every real estate "expert" that wants to sell you their secrets always end up talking about the same thing...Leads. I am not saying I am an expert, I work to be good at what I do, but people hardly take the time to talk to old veterans in the business that had and have a good business, they know something about leads. The Results Real Estate Group is a team, husband and wife, started by the would be husband. I, the wife, came in and took over everything Marketing in the company, which is a lot given we do real estate. Since I have come on the team, I started tracking sources of leads in 2017/2018. Recently, I had to ask myself-after Facebook removed a metric I loved using in Leasing Snapshots-if I should use Facebook in our marketing plan? The only way to know is to look at the numbers and data. To have an idea of whether or not Facebook should be in our future game plans, you have to have a reference something else comparatively. Last, from January to December, Zillow w...

We recently talked about "Breaking The Rental Log Jam", where we went into an overall glimpse of how the market was fighting back during "COVID-19" or "Fragile" Market. You can read that blog here, but as we have closed all leases currently in our pipeline-I wanted to take a moment to go in depth about each type of unit and how it did in said market. Rental A is a 3 Story Townhome in Yorba Linda. It became available just before the shut down started, and you can see how the shock to not only the market, but the world in general, reflects itself in our numbers. Funny enough, we have leased this out before and did not get as much inquiries as we did this time around leasing it. So the needed numbers were there, but fear is a powerful disabler. After week 5 during COVID-19, it went to a lovely group with plenty of "really interested" people ready to submit an application if it fell through. This unit is the front unit in a recently purchased...

Today I wanted to offer a play-by-play on just one of our investment clients: 2013: Purchased a 3 bed condo in South Coast Metro for $128,000. There were 27 cats that lived in this property, all without litter boxes, the smell from the nitrogen in the urine permeated everything, along the top of all the walls had 8 inches of mold, floors were all warped. Funny thing was, they had a $2,000 Viking stainless steel range stove, nearly brand new. 2013: Spend $23,000 to fix it up, including new everything. Little to no repair work for 7 years afterwards because we did it right to begin with. Instant equity as price was $175,000. 2013: Rented for $1,700 2014: Rent increase to $1,750 2015: Rent increase to $1,800 2016: Rent increase to $1,850 2017: Rent increase to $1,950 2018: New tenant, rented for $2,000 2019: New tenant, rent for $2,300 2020: SOLD during the Coronavirus for $360,000, under contract with the proceeds for most of the downpayment for a $1.367M 4plex purchase in...

I want to speak briefly to the masses today. Normally our audience is the Buyer and Seller, and yet it is easy enough for anyone to become both. It could even happen that you are a Buyer, Seller, and Investor at the same time! How can this be? Me, a normal person can be a Investor? Yes. Even more than that, as soon as you start your journey you start doing something greater than yourself, building generational wealth. Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. This beginning looks like a house purchase. That would be because it is a house purchase. Assuming you are buying this house to rent out, you are now a Landlord and Investor. The first house is going to be the scariest, it gets easier from there. Let's assume you have rented out the house for a couple of years and you are looking to upgrade from a Single Family Residence to a Duplex. You would sell your Single Family Residence and 1031 the proceeds of the sale into the purchase of the duplex. Yo...

The stay at home initiative, or quarantine, began on 3/20/20. At that time we only had one active lease, we are going to call that: Rental A. We gather leads during the week and send out a showing text on Friday, for a showing - Open House Style - on Saturday (Sundays as needed). As you can guess, or lived with us, everything was sluggish as no one knew what to make of our hopefully temporary circumstances Week 1 of Quarantine: 3/28/30 Rental A - 3 Bedroom Townhome Yorba Linda: 7 Inquiries | 0 people attended showing | 0 groups attended showing | 0 Apps Makes sense right? Everyone was told to Stay At Home, not look for home, so they stayed home. Week 2 of Quarantine: 4/4/20 Rental A - 3 Bedroom Townhome Yorba Linda: 4 Inquires | 0 people attended showing | 0 groups attended showing | 0 Apps Less inquiries and similar attendance. But the show must go on right, so we kept at it. To make things even more interesting, Rental B and Rental C went live on the market between W...

In this modern day and age, companies like Yelp have made a business out of Reviews. As a consumer, reviews are often used to feel out a company you are considering using and are looking to do some research on. As a business, we love good reviews. But to have such a thing as a good review, means we have to have such a thing as a bad review. No one likes bad reviews, except the person who put it there as a tool of negativity for (usually) self gain. If you have been in business for 10+ years, and your business is a sensitive one-as if you provide people a place to live-you are bound to have some reviews. Home is where the heart is, many people say and the heart is the source of emotion. We ourselves have more people that like us than don't like us-but they don't often leave reviews. If you called and spoke to them though, they would be happy to tell you about what it was like to be a tenant with us. But where there is good, there can also be bad. Not many people know ...

Greetings, Today I would like to do a continuation of observations I had about our Coronavirus lives: - Cash is Trash . The Fed has decided to monetize not only government debt, but had a "special purpose vehicle", or "SPV" to purchase corporate debt. The reason they had to do this is because their charter does not allow them to purchase these types of (risky) assets, the SPV is housed at the Treasury, meaning with the executive branch. - This is sinister as it bypasses the need for the executive branch to ask Congress to loosen the purse-strings, Mnuchin, and by extension, Trump, can buy what he wants at will.  - Debasing the currency means that you should consider hard assets, either gold ($GLD, $IAU) or real estate. I have closed, or will close (removed contingencies) on 4 properties since this started, two of which are units. - Seriously, in case you missed it, go buy gold and real estate , when you debase a currency, assets denominated in that curre...

Now that we have our priorities in place, and an action plan based on those priorities-time to make the plan a reality. Here is how: 1.       Create your list of action items for the home zones 2.       Organize your project list based on your priorities 3.       Make a realistic, comfortable budget 4.       Determine your time frame and team Now, let’s assume you have completed and you started your journey going green. The journey once started-never really ends. Here is how to continue the journey once your greenovating is completed: 1.       Practice proper maintenance for optimal performance 2.       Keep it clean 3.       Watch for problems 4.       Share the rewards of your green home adventure Sharing is caring-caring about the world and inspiring others to...

We are onto our last zone and almost done with the going green blogs! Here is the Outside Zone. Here are some Sustainability action items for the outside zone: water your lawn more efficiently, create a sustainable landscape, and plant a garden of your own. To water your lawn more efficiently: be water wise, collect your rainwater, and use your rainwater. To create a sustainable landscape: landscape for your climate, choose native plants, and be wildlife friendly. To plant a garden of your own: grow your food with a raised bed garden and compost to create organic fertilizer. Here is a Money Smart action item for the outside zone: Improve your energy efficiency from the outside in. To improve your energy efficiency from the outside in: plant shade trees, add awnings to stay cool, and consider a solar CPV power system. Here are some Healthy action items for the outside zone: Practice safe landscaping technique and bring your home outside. To practice safe landscaping techniques, lim...

Last week we discussed the first zone, this week are discussing the next zone: The Systems. Here are Money Smart action items for the systems zone: Understand how you use energy, pay yourself back with easy energy updates, and tighten the building envelope. To understand how you use energy: take a hard look at your utility bill and establish a baseline with an energy audit. To pay yourself back with easy energy updates: install a digital thermostat and light your way to savings. To tighten the building envelope: seal the gaps, patch your ducts, beef up your insulation and improve your window’s performance. Here are some Energy action items for the systems zone: Maintain your mechanical heating and cooling system and work with nature. To maintain your mechanical system: stay warm and keep cool. To work with nature: take advantage of natural heating techniques and incorporate natural cooling methods. Here is a Healthy action item for the systems zone: Optimize your ventilation syste...

Greetings, Today I wanted to simply jot down some thoughts I had about this novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that the news cycle seems to love to talk about: - Will real estate values be affected? The answer is the same as every real estate question, it depends. I believe luxury will be impacted, I think more modest dwellings will not, and for a very simple reason, there is not more inventory and people have to live somewhere. - Is this our 1987 moment? In 1987 we had Black Monday, the biggest one day stock market drop in history, afterwards, real estate prices went up in a straight line for 18 months. Just like any good investor, when there is a shock to the system, you have to recalibrate, you either go to safety (or even relative safety, like houses versus paper ownership in a company), or you go to what has been undervalued. I suspect there is a good chance this is our 1987 moment for real estate. The 80's are dead, long live the 80's. - The drop in stock price...