[nemo44x]

I think some people find it frustrating to see that the system does in fact work; that the narrative they’ve chosen to believe is just cynical and wrong. That a person on a house cleaners income can find a way to own property in SF as well as around the country. And be good about it by finding properties that need some love and investing in them.

I thought it was a great story about a person that saw the vast opportunities in front of them and used a bit of grit and smarts to make happen the future they wanted.

[bradlys]

lol - did you not look at the prices they were dealing with? They bought an apartment building with friends and their share of the mortgage was only $900/month - half of which was shared with their partner. $900/month is a joke - even for back then. They bought land with cash that was even remotely near SF as well - unfathomable now.

This person bought before prices in SF were so above and beyond what anyone near that level of income could ever afford.

This is just survivorship bias mixed with a bit of “I did it during a time when prices were nowhere near what they are now”.

Story sucks because it’s not a story of grit and smarts. It’s a story of unrepeatability.

[stevehawk]

You're not wrong that they did it during a better time. But the move to get a bunch of friends to essentially move in and take over an apartment building and then buy it (in a non-forced manner) was pretty clever.

[bradlys]

I think my issue with that is that it’s not going to be easy to do in the current market. Back then - it was more doable. They were able to buy under market value (when that likely wasn’t very much to begin with) and manage the loan with each other. Now where each person needs to make $250k+ to afford buying the apartment - you’re getting into territory where you’re unlikely to find people who want to buy that apartment and move into one whole place with you. Maybe it’s doable but the virtue of it being so expensive and the incomes required being so high means that it’s very unlikely to be reproducible unless you only associate with very high income people and those people also like apartments.

I find high income folks generally want to move away from apartments as they age and they want to do so at a much faster rate than someone in a much lower income bracket would.

[ravel-bar-foo]

This person was able to buy cheap in 2008 because they had cash instead of debt. Imagine if they had all their cash in stocks in 2008...

[more_corn]

Remember when there was a drastic exodus of renters from SF about a year ago? Multi unit apartment buildings were selling for remarkably affordable prices. A friend of mine was looking at a property that fit in the mentioned cost profile. There was a brick wall that either concealed a good foundation or a colossal problem so he passed. If he’d persisted and drilled a hole it could have been a winner. That part of the story was repeatable in the last year. It’s not unreasonable to find a buildable lot for $40k within two hours drive of SF (I’ve looked) that part is repeatable. I found a house in Sonoma county for $450k. Needed work, that part is repeatable. I imagine you could find property to rehab and rent in Wisconsin if you tried. Maybe what you mean is “this sounds like more effort than I’d be willing to put in”