Real estate parties heavily financed $75M campaign against the measure

Californians soundly voted down Proposition 10 on Tuesday, a victory for California’s real estate investors and a major blow to rent control advocates around the state.

If it had passed, Prop 10 would have repealed a state law barring new rent control measures in California, allowing local governments to pass broad new rent control laws. With 97 percent of precincts counted, the measure had only 38 percent of votes in favor. It needed more than 50 percent “Yes” votes to pass.

by Stephen C. Duringer, Esq. of the Duringer Law Group, PLC

Question.         I am a very conscientious landlord.  I want to ensure that my rentals are well maintained and that any maintenance issues are addressed immediately.  Every year, I send a notice to my residents informing them that I will inspect each unit.  I have been doing this for years without any problems.  This month I received a letter from one of my tenants telling me that I had no right to enter his apartment to look around, that he would not let me in.  What do I do?  Can I force my way in to do the inspection?

Answer.           Your policy of doing annual inspections is admirable, and is practiced by responsible landlords throughout California.  Most tenants welcome a responsible landlord’s actions in ensuring that all is well, and voluntarily cooperate in providing access upon the landlord’s reasonable request.  It is clearly in the best interest of all to ensure that any maintenance issues are promptly addressed, and that a spirit of communication and co-operation exists between a landlord and his residents.  Trouble is, your resident is right.  There is no specific provision in California law requiring a resident to allow the landlord access to merely “inspect” the premises.  California law states that a landlord can enter a rental unit only for certain reasons.   Those reasons are in an emergency, when the tenant has moved out or abandoned the premises, to make necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations, or other improvements, to show the unit to prospective purchasers, tenants, or lenders, to provide entry to contractors or worker who are to perform work on the unit, or to conduct a pre move out inspection at the end of the tenancy, pursuant to court order, or to inspect the smoke detector or inspect the installation of a waterbed.  Conspicuously absent from this body of law is the unfettered right of a landlord to just inspect for the pure sake of just making sure everything is all right.  You cannot force your tenant to allow access for the purpose of inspection.  

by Brian Gordon

Every investment needs an exit strategy.  Without it, you’ve failed to map out a plan and like the old saying goes: “When you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.  For many investors, the exit may be transferring to your children, charitable donation or simply securing the passive income to supplement a comfortable retirement.  For many new investors in the Southern California multifamily market, the opportunity to exit couldn’t come fast enough. 

By Becky Bower 

Craigslist is a great tool to promote your vacancies and attract a ton of new, interested applicants, but it isn’t without its problems. The online classified site is notorious for being the playground for identity thieves, scammers, and digital criminals – and your rental properties could be their next target.

By Dee Soffer

Trust is fragile gift. One that you must hold on to dearly and handle it with utmost care. We need trust in everything we do. It’s that component in life that when you have it, everything becomes possible.  It is the basis of healthy relationships; first cultivated with ourselves and then with everything that surrounds us.

In this short article I want to focus on contractual trust. Where one party promises to act a certain way, and in return the other party promises to respond in an agreeable manner. This is the preliminary stage of establishing the very critical step of building the foundation for trust worthy relationships. The stage where expectations are built, and deliverables become metrics for character and capacities judgment. Presumably, both sides take this step with their best of intentions to meet expectations.

By Priyanka Agarwal, J Turner Research

Exorbitant fees for routine wear and tear and a rude onsite staff are only two of the reasons behind a bad move out. Find out what the others are.

By Robert Murphy

If borrowers have been deliberating whether to refinance existing CRE debt, today’s market conditions present an excellent opportunity to lock in long-term debt.  You may have recently heard talk about the yield curve flattening  – in this instance, short-term government rates have crept up within shouting distance of the 10-year Treasury yield.  The last time the spread between the 10T & 2T notes (as of 4/25: 0.53%) has been this narrow was April 2005.  Although the flattening yield curve is inviting discussion from market experts about possible inversion, the current flatter curve provides a long-term CRE investor with a terrific opportunity to refinance existing floating-rate debt.

By Daniel Bornstein | Bornstein Law

A perennial issue we’ve had at Bornstein Law has been communicating the law when it sometimes has the shelf life of a banana peel. When it comes to police presence at a rental unit, our earlier article stands to be upended.

In that venue on domestic violence, we noted among other things that when discord spills into other units and interferes with other tenants’ quiet enjoyment of the premises, a landlord should give deference to a tenant when they are victims of “domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, or elder or dependent adult abuse.”

By Jon Coupal

One of the most contentious political battles currently being waged in Sacramento during the final two weeks of the legislative session is over the extent to which investor-owned utilities, such as Pacific Gas & Electric, should be held liable and have to compensate property owners for the damage inflicted by the horrendous wildfires that are still burning across the state. Average California taxpayers and homeowners probably sense this is a big deal because of extensive media coverage, but may not know what to think about it.

By Dwight Kay | KPI1031.com

So you’ve decided to do a 1031 exchange, meaning you have decided to sell your property and invest that money in another property in order to defer the federal capital gains tax, state capital gains tax, depreciation recapture tax and the Medicare surtax. Smart!

But are you just moving from one headache to another? If you’re looking to retire from property management but you still want to defer your taxes using a 1031 exchange and keep your invested money working for you, you might be interested in learning about a DST.