Shokoofeh Nowbakht

Evaluation of Rental Property
June 2, 2009 · · 7 Comments

for-rentHow do you evaluate a rental property?
There are many formulas to calculate different income ratios, various expenses and taxes you incur as a landlord. The first thing you should pay close attention to is the existing leases. Find out the current rents, the remaining lease terms and the annual increase in rents for every unit. It is very important to determine how these rents compare to the rents for similar properties in the area?    Read more

Kathy Wall

Rent Control – Out of Control
December 31, 2008 · · 3 Comments

I have an elderly client who purchased a home in San Francisco’s Sunset District many years ago.   A few years after the purchase, he and his wife decided to move to Marin and rented the house out to a “friend.”  

It’s now about 30 years later and my client desperately needs to sell the home so that he can keep up with ongoing medical bills.   You see, his wife had a very bad stroke while on an airplane about 8 years ago and, a year later, ended up with kidney failure.   She’s been in a wheelchair and on dialysis ever since.  Sadly, they had no insurance at the time of his wife’s stroke and certainly can’t get any now, so he’s been borrowing on the San Francisco house in order to keep up with her numerous and never ending expenses.   Now, the payments are ballooning up to a point that he can no longer afford to pay them. Read more