Comments on: Certainty?

By: Every Day I Write the Book « Stop, Drop and Roll

Every Day I Write the Book « Stop, Drop and Roll — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:28:21 +0000

[...] One of the most underreported issue, sales tax receipts continue to fall [...]

By: dave

dave — Thu, 24 May 2007 13:45:36 +0000

Mark:

It never ceases to amaze me what people will pay for rental properties around here. In the rest of the nation East of Contra Costa, rentals trade btw 5-9 times gross annual rent, with obvious local and regional variances. They generally cash flow with only 20-30% down (again, varies). But investors in the Bay Area routinely accept negative cash flow, sometimes substantial negative cash flow, on rental properties. Lenders show similar “irrational exuberance” by financing these deals. I’ve never been able to get my heaqd around this, but I’m bright enough to know I can’t change it, so I buy REIT shares instead of local buildings.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:39:54 +0000

I admire Kirk’s creative thinking and this is an interesting scenario, but for this impact we would need a large number of these conversions. What occurs to me is that most of these converted Vic’s are little money machines for the owners. I don’t see them running in droves to sell them. I know a long time rental owner who is selling off his buildings, mostly originally real apartment buildings. I asked how the buyers manage since it seems they have mortgaes which would require they subsidize the rents or raise them astronimically. He said the buyers are looking at the long term, but admitted that if he were trying to get into this market today he wouldn’t buy his buildings from him. He didn’t metion TIC but perhaps that’s how the buyers are managing to purchase. As they have sold I have not noticed mass turn over in tenants. It’s easy to observe people moving in and out. I don’t know what protections renters have in this town, except Barbra Kerr vehemently objected to any form of rent control.

By: Kirk Knight

Kirk Knight — Mon, 21 May 2007 04:04:39 +0000

I heard these stats about six months ago and was quite surprised at the strength of Park Street. It’s tragic that so few people comprehend that local car dealerships are going the way of newspapers and dinosaurs due to the Internet disintermediation.

BUT WAIT, HERE’S $400,000 A YEAR

Would lovely Alameda like an additional $400,000 a year in tax revenue with NO ADDITIONAL TRAFFIC?

Allow the rehab and conversion of 25 fourplex apartment buildings, to owner occupied condominiums each year and voila, we generate about $400,000 in transfer taxes, plus more property taxes (which are shared mostly with state and county).

There are over 500 lovelybuildings constructed before 1942, most as single family homes converted to apartments between 1930 and 1945, that could really be appealing if we fixed them up, kept the period details, and sell to 4 owner-occupants in the form of condominiums.

$400,000 a year…increasing for over 20 years…no new traffic…. no new construction…. same or lower density…more neighborhood stability…more sense of Alameda pride…..want to play?

Kirk Knight

By: Lauren Do

Lauren Do — Sat, 19 May 2007 00:49:02 +0000

Retail sales tax? We don’t need no stinkin’ retail sales tax. As long as we have Measure A and the elusive “quality of life” it has brough to Alameda, we don’t need to concern ourselves with a decline in retail sales tax collection.