ADUs vs DADUs

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ADUs AND DADUs

If you’re thinking about building an ADU or DADU, there are several factors to consider. As noted above, both share many advantages, but the following are additional issues to consider:

Accessory Dwelling Unit

§ Can provide rental income

§ The space and building systems already exists - construction expense is greatly reduced

§ Does not impact scale or character of neighborhood and often goes unnoticed

§ Does not impact open space of property

§ Unit can often be directly connected to house if so desired (family members)

§ Can be a quick return investment

§ Since the unit is attached, sounds will likely be heard regardless of sound-proofing efforts

§ Privacy. You’ll likely be sharing some exterior spaces and possibly even some interior


Detached Accessory Dwelling Units

§ Can provide rental income

§ Increased privacy and no shared walls and floors/ceiling

§ Clear boundaries can be delineated between units

§ Cost. Building a DADU is significantly more costly per square foot than building a house

§ Takes away from yard and open space

§ Potential to impact neighbors open space and privacy

LESSONS LEARNED

Below are "before" and "after" floor plans of an ADU we recently completed. As with most ADUs we’ve designed, the basement was finished space and only required minor interior renovations. A small, compact kitchen was added along with a new closet for a stacked washer/dryer, and sound attenuation and fire separation was added to adjoining house walls and ceilings. In addition, access to an electric sub-panel and thermostat was added for independent control of the building systems within the unit. And the best part - no exterior work was required. This ADU has 485 SF of rentable space, will be used as a long term rental, rents for $1,200 / month and cost $35,000 which included all project costs.



DADUs are wonderful - who doesn't love a tiny house (?!) but ADUs are typically a bigger bang for the buck. Based on the ADU project we've designed, returns on investments have ranged from 2 to 4 years.

How to finance? We'll be exploring this topic in our next blog. Stay tuned!

Happy Investing!

Today's blog courtesy of David Taber, Neiman Taber Architects

Illegal Dwelling Units

My last blog was about City of Seattle housing code violations for rental property. Here is how the city defines an Illegal Dwelling Unit:

 

Summary: The Department of Planning and Development (DPD) Director’s Rule 7-83, “Determining the Existence of a Dwelling Unit for the Purpose of Code Enforcement,” sets out a variety of important factors for determining whether a dwelling unit exists. DPD has found that three critical elements tend to identify a dwelling unit: a kitchen or other food preparation area; bathroom facilities that include both a toilet and a shower or bathtub; and a living area set apart or separated from other living areas by doors, walls, stairways, hallways or common areas.

So be advised, if you are renting by the room, but one of the units contains these three critical elements, then the City would likely consider your house to be a duplex or an ADU. Keep this in mind for the future, if you are a Seattle landlord or property manager.

Happy Investing!

City of Seattle Code Violation

The City of Seattle received a complaint regarding illegal rental at your one of the properties that I manage on Beacon Hill. A permit for a legal ADU (accessory dwelling unit) in this house was first pulled in 2004 but expired 2005; then again in 2010, expired May 2012. It passed framing and insulation, but not final inspections. It is not a legal ADU. It is now considered an illegal duplex. 

The City has a tip sheet #606 specifically on illegal dwelling units.

New guidance on ADUs does not address attached ADUs, only detached and backyard cottages.

 

Could the owner could apply for a variance? This may be difficult to get approved, although City Council is really focused on affordable housing right now. This might be worth a call to city council.

To be a legal ADU, the owner must live in the house for six months of every year. If it is converted back to a single dwelling unit, then it could be rented by the room for no more than eight unrelated persons. 

But the City currently considers the physical configuration of this house as two units. The owner will be receiving a notice of code violation probably by the end of this month.

This would give the owner 30 days notice to make progress towards correcting the violation. Progress could mean due diligence in getting permits, doing an intake appointment, gathering documents, engaging a professional to draw up plans for permitting. Also, given that the 30 days will end around Christmas/New Year's, it is very likely that the owner or the affected tenants could request a 30-day extension.

Dislocated tenants would be entitled to relocation assistance, if above 50% median income - two months rent; if below, $2000 or two months rent. Contact the Property Owner and Tenant Assistance group of the City at 206-386-4249 for more information on this.

I would suggest the following as the owner's least expensive options right now:

Give notice to one set of tenants that the owner will be moving into one of the units on February 1, 2016; and that they will have to move out. They are entitled to two months rent through relocation assistance.Then the other tenants could remain through the end of their lease. The owner would need to begin the process of completing the permitting towards a legal ADU within that 30-day window.

The owner could also sell the property with the current code violation as is, and the City would give the new owner 30 days to make progress toward correcting it. I am not sure if the new tenants would have to be notified and move out under this option. I will review a copy of the City tip sheet once I receive it, as it will likely have more details on various options towards addressing this code violation.

Interesting that these opportunities that make more housing available in the city of Seattle are being pursued in a climate of rising rents, and concern from City officials on how to make housing more affordable. Seattle Landlords, take note!

Happy Investing!

 

Seattle Rent Control

Here is a letter I recently received from Seattle City Councilman Nick Licata on rent control in the city of Seattle:

Thank you for writing to the City Council about our passage of a resolution requesting that the State Legislature vote to lift the state ban in support of local control of rent regulations.  That resolution passed the City Council on an 8-1 vote in support.

On Wednesday, October 14, I am going to kick off these discussions of how we move forward in Seattle and Olympia to address the affordable housing crisis, with the goal of providing more information about our desired direction to our Legislative Delegation in time for the 2016 Legislative Session.  I am hosting a discussion in City Hall Chambers at 3pm, entitled:  How have rent regulations worked in the real world? Timothy L. Collins is our guest.  He ran the rent stabilization program for one million housing units in New York City, a metropolis of over eight million people. He has an unmatched grasp of the on-the-ground realities - economic, political, social and legal - of New York City and state rental housing and efforts to keep it affordable.

Housing affordability in Seattle has become a crisis with some of the highest rent increases of major U.S. cities.  Seattle is now among the nation’s ten most expensive cities.  More than 45% of Seattle rental households are now considered rent-burdened.

A 2015 Washington State Housing Needs Assessment found there are only 34 affordable rental housing units in the City available for every 100 renter households who are earning 50% or below of the median income ($31,400 for a single person), and just 15 affordable rental units in the City available for every 100 renter households earning 30% or below of the median income ($18,850 for a single person).

Finally, the Out of Reach Report found that in order for a single parent to afford a two-bedroom in King County, one needs to make $27.21 per hour, or $56,595 a year.

What kind of rent regulations would a lift on the ban allow Seattle to consider?

There are over 200 cities across the country with some form of rent regulation, and each city has tailored their ordinance to fit their housing markets.  Large cities like New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Oakland, California have rent regulations as well as smaller cities like Santa Monica, Berkeley, and West Hollywood, and 100 towns in New Jersey and several in Maryland.  Most offer various kinds of exemptions.  For instance newly constructed buildings can be exempt unless the owner voluntarily opts-in in order to receive a property tax reduction.  These laws also allow for additional exemptions when landlords experience increased costs such as increased taxes, utilities, or capital improvement costs.  Many rent regulation laws also contain hardship provisions to ensure that no building operates at a loss because of these laws.

In other words, one size does not fit all.  Most of these laws are not the kind of laws that most people would consider to be traditional “rent control,” which is being phased out in New York City for instance. Other examples, like laws that close loopholes in local tenant protections and establish better enforcement of the law, laws that require serious code violations to be corrected before rent increases, and laws that prohibit rent increases for seniors in the winter months are all prohibited under RCW 35.21.830, the Washington State law prohibiting all “ordinances or other provisions that regulate the amount of rent.”

Do Rent Regulations Work?

The main arguments are that rent regulations a. lead to high vacancy rates, b. slow new construction, and c. result in deterioration and abandonment.  It’s important to make a distinction between the “first generation” rent control laws passed post-World War I and World War II that froze rental costs from the “second generation” rent stabilization laws that replaced them.  In NYC there are about 38,000 rent controlled apartments compared to about one million rent stabilized apartments.  The term “rent regulated” encompasses both rent controlled and rent stabilized units.

Economist Phillip Weitzman, a former director of research and policy with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development has said, “The existing empirical literature does not take into account the rise of second generation [moderate] rent controls.” A review of cities with these later laws shows that most of the arguments used against regulating rent are associated with these strict first generation rent control laws.  Here are some of the most common.

Myth 1 – Vacancy rates will rise with rent regulations:

• After Boston got rid of its rent regulations the vacancy rate got even smaller – it fell to 2.9 percent, from 4% under rent stabilization.
• NYC, a city with a million rent stabilized units, consistently has vacancy rates that are lower than the rest of the country.

Myth 2 – New construction will slow:

• Most cities exempt newly constructed buildings unless the owner voluntarily participates in exchange for generous property tax abatements (and in NYC most do opt in).
• A New Jersey study done after multifamily housing construction dropped by 77% in the nation and in New Jersey by 88% found that the reduction in New Jersey cities with rent regulations was only 52%.
• NYC’s two biggest 20^th century housing booms occurred under its strictest rent control.

Myth 3 – Deterioration and abandonment will result:

• Abandonment takes place, and at similar rate both in cities with rent stabilization and those without it.
• A Columbia University study by Peter Marcuse concluded that “substantial evidence available from national as well as local studies suggests that there is no correlation between rent control and abandonment.”
• Under many laws, owners are allowed generous rent increases for improvements made to their rent regulated properties. For example, an owner who provides a new $400 in a refrigerator is entitled to a rent increase of $10 per month forever.  And the cost of major capital improvements yields twice as much of their original cost in 14-

Myth 4 – All economists oppose rent regulations.

• The source for this statement appears to originate from a survey of economists who were asked, if they agreed that “a ceilingon rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.”
• Moderate rent regulations are not a “ceiling.”
• Michael Mandel, a chief economist with Business Week, wrote: “A price ceiling, as defined by economists, is a uniform ban on selling a product above a certain price…. It is clear that such a policy inevitably leads to shortages. However, rent control laws in the United States are not price ceilings in this sense…these laws will not suppress the supply of new apartments (and may even increase supply).”

A recent LA study found that its Rent Stabilization Ordinance, covering 66% of their rental units, has been successful.   It may be true that rent control and rent stabilization have not solved the housing crisis and that rents are very high in places like San Francisco and NYC, but that is not a result of rent control.  Just the opposite – rent stabilization laws have been eroded in those cities, adding to the unaffordability of housing there.  Changes have included allowing property owners to deregulate apartments once vacant (California) or when the unit reaches a regulated rent of $2,000 and goes vacant or its tenants’ income reaches $250,000 or more (NYC). Later changes further lowered the threshold for high-income decontrol and creating a “vacancy bonus” that allowed landlords to raise rents 20% when a stabilized tenant leaves.  These changes in rent control laws have resulted in hundreds of thousands of units leaving the system in both of those cities.

What is clear is that the market, without regulatory laws in place, does not work. How can one call increasing rents by over 100% and forcing people to leave their homes of twenty years, as well as in many cases leaving their community, a working model?

What can be done to control rents?

The short answer right now is that in Washington State very little can be done. When the Republicans got control of both houses and the Governor’s office in 1980, they banned any form of controlling or limiting rental rates. I worked with the State Legislature this year and last year to try and pass State legislation (supported by the Seattle Times) that would have given all renters in Washington State more notice of large rent increases, but landlords opposed that legislation, so our only option is to try and change the state law to give us the local authority. The Council’s resolution to request the State to repeal or amend the ban will allow Seattle to determine whether there is a policy path that we can design to address our affordability challenges.

Sincerely,

Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata

Happy Investing!

Property Managers Dos and Don'ts

I specialize in property management, both long- and short-term, furnished- or unfurnished rentals located in the city of Seattle. As a member of Washington Landlords Association, I have access to the most current legal forms, a regular newsletter full of great landlord tips, and conferences on rental management. Here are some great lists provided by WLA on property management.

Top Things Most Property Managers Will Do

•  Be responsible to maintain and apply a thorough knowledge of the Landlord Tenant Act of Washington, as well as any related local codes. Deals with all government authorities on the owner's behalf.
• Market/advertise the unit, screen prospective tenants, and manage the day-to-day operations of the property, per signed contract with client.
• Monitor and enforce the provisions of the lease or rental agreement, prepare and serve appropriate notices, and represent the owner in eviction actions.
• Make rental collections, field tenant complaints, and coordinate necessary repairs. Coordinate and attend Section 8 inspections.
• Deal with government officials on the owner's behalf, such as tenant code violations.
• Submit statements and send check (or deposit net rental incomes into owner's bank account) on a monthly basis.
• In short, give the owner client peace of mind to go on vacations or live out of state.

Top Things Most Property Managers Will Not Do

• Discriminate - violating local, state and federal housing laws. This provides protection for clients from expensive audits and lawsuits.
• Pay the owner's mortgage debt, taxes, insurance or any licenses.
• Make decisions on major projects without owner approval.
• Babysit contractors or service providers such as landscapers.
• Perform mitigation, such as placing a temporary tarp on a leaking roof.
• Make investment advice, such as mortgage financing, insurance outlets, remodeling options, etc.
• Lobby or join advocacy groups and/or neighborhood watches for you.

If you are considering renting out part or all of your Seattle house, please contact me directly at HomeLandInvestment@gmail.com to learn more about your options. There is no fee and no obligation for a consultation.

Happy Investing!

No Rent Control

Dear Seattle City Councilmembers,

I'm writing to ask you to vote NO on the rent control resolution being brought forth to Full Council.

Rent control is a feel-good policy, but it is fundamentally flawed and negatively impacts poor people more than any other group.

Rent costs are driven by the costs of land, construction, financing, and demand. When a builder decides to build a project, they have to balance the costs with potential rent revenue. If rent potential is too low, a project won’t pencil and banks, lenders, and other funders won’t put money into the project.

In San Francisco, Census data published in 2013 by the American Community Survey shows that over 32,000 housing units sit vacant - a full 1 in 12 housing units in the city. The reason? Rent control.

Rent control is a disincentive for housing production. Less housing built means fewer units, which leads to continued higher prices. Consider that:

• Rent control doesn’t lower overall prices; if some units are locked in, the difference is made up in other parts of the market with even higher prices.
• When rent cannot fluctuate, there is no incentive or cash flow to maintain buildings, especially since costs are not controlled and continue to rise in Seattle at a rate of nearly 4% per year. These costs are actually forecast to rise even further due to utility costs.
• Rent control concentrates poverty, reduces tenant mobility, and prevents new renter from having housing opportunities; once a person is in a rent-controlled unit they end up staying there.
• The beneficiaries of rent control are a mixed bag - often wealthier households end up getting rent controlled apartments, while truly poor families don’t.
•  

What can the City Council do to create more affordable housing, and preserve existing housing which is affordable? I ask that you please consider the following:

• Lower costs and barriers to entry for housing producers, both market rate and non-profit. Fees, process, inspections, and taxes make up as much as 20 percent of housing costs in Seattle.
• Increase production of all types of housing, for all levels of income everywhere in our city. Revisiting microhousing, and expanding opportunities for infill in our neighborhoods with ADU units are two places to start.
• Identify and define the problem appropriately; does a household paying 31 percent of its income on rent need help? What about the family paying 25 percent for housing, but still struggling to make ends meet?
• When we build market rate housing for people who have more money to spend that means they are not competing for housing against poor people. This is a simple fact of economics that needs to be factored into our decisions about housing.
• We need to be efficient about subsidies and how we use our public resources for housing. There is an array of opportunities, like using our debt capacity to building housing on City owned land, an idea championed by Councilmember Sawant.

Thank you for taking the time to hear my concerns, and for your consideration. Again, I strongly encourage you to vote NO to rent control.

Thanks to Rental Housing Association for providing the information above on the issues around rent control.

Happy Investing!

Seattle Rental Inspection Program

The Seattle Rental Inspection Program is now underway, and affects all rental properties located within the City of Seattle. Here is some information about it from the City of Seattle website:

What Is It?

The Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance (RRIO) helps ensure that all rental housing in Seattle is safe and meets basic housing maintenance requirements. The program will educate property owners, managers, and renters about City housing codes and their responsibilities; and require owners to verify their properties meet these standards when registering with the City.

Registration:

• The Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance requires landlords to register all rental housing units in Seattle, from single-family houses to large apartment buildings.
• Exceptions to the registration requirement include commercial lodging, state-licensed facilities such as adult family homes, and housing owned by government groups or by housing authorities such as Seattle Housing Authority. See the ordinance for more detail.
• Landlords must register their properties according to the following schedule:

• All properties with 10 or more units should have registered by September 30, 2014. If you own one of these properties and have not yet registered, you will be assessed a $20 late fee and you may be subject to additional penalties and fees.
• All properties with 5 to 9 rental housing units must be registered by March 31, 2015.
• All properties with 1 to 4 rental housing units will be registered from 2015 to 2016. We will base specific deadlines for these properties on the ZIP code where the property is located.

• Registrations must be renewed every 5 years.

Inspection:

• The ordinance requires that all registered rental properties be inspected at least once every 10 years.
• The owner must hire a qualified rental housing inspector or City inspector to do the inspections.
• Rental properties with prior enforcement action will be inspected early in the program. See the ordinance for more detail.

This ordinance does not cover complaint-based enforcement of City housing standards. We will continue our complaint-based process for housing code violations. Our City housing and zoning inspectors will continue to enforce all housing code standards and other applicable codes.

As an investor, I would be watching this closely, as I believe it has several implications for rental properties, owners and investors in the Seattle market. What do you, my readers, think?

 Tomorrow I will post some of my thoughts on the implications of this program for real estate investors in Seattle.

 Happy Investing!

Seattle Rent Hikes

Sunday’s Seattle Times reported on the issues surrounding rising rents I the greater Seattle housing market.  According to market research firm Dupre + Scott, September’s average rent in the city of Seattle increased 10.3 percent from a year ago to $1495/month.

Ballard led all Seattle neighborhoods with a 21 percent annual increase to $1550/month for a one-bedroom, one-bath unit. Much of these increases are due to new construction of units with greater amenities.

Yet even older apartments built prior to 2011 saw rents up by 7.8 percent, four times higher than the overall inflation rate. Residents in apartment complexes with more than 20 units can expect to see rents increase another 4 percent by March 2015, according to Dupre + Scott.

Bellevue’s asking rents of $1665 are the highest in the metro area, a 6.9 percent annual increase over last year.

Seattle is attracting a number of institutional buyers from outside our region, as the city is considered one of the country’s top markets for multifamily investment.

The Seattle Times article focused on the city’s dilemma in providing affordable housing, but did not address the likely impacts of the City’s new rental inspection requirement, being put in place this year. In addition, City Council is considering a (short-sighted) proposal to require all developers to pay a fee towards the development of affordable housing. Time will tell how that will play out in increasing or decreasing the city’s supply of affordable rental units. Stay tuned.

Happy Investing!

Rents Rise in Seattle

According to Seattle-based Apartment Insights Washington, rents on new leases in King and Snohomish counties rose 6.8 percent from a year ago in the first quarter of 2014.

Average rents for a one-bedroom in different Seattle neighborhoods are as follows:
Downtown - $1797
Ballard - $1356
Central District - $1347
Queen Anne/Magnolia - $1344
Green Lake/Wallingford - $1336
First Hill - $1334
Capitol Hill/Eastlake - $1305
West Seattle - $1161
University District - $1158
North Seattle - $1016
Rainier Valley - $981

More than 80 percent of multifamily properties in Seattle and King County plan to raise rents in the next six months by an average of four percent, according to Dupre+Scott Apartment Advisors.

It is a landlord's market in Seattle!

Happy Investing!

WA Landlord Association Winter Conference

Here are my notes from the WA Landlord Association Winter Conference that I attended today:

Washington Landlord Association
Geoff Tallent from City of Seattle discussed rental housing inspection. The framework of the inspection program is to effectively address rental housing problems, focus on important issues of safety and livability, to keep costs low for registration and time, keep program focused on compliance, stay within legal and constitutional limits, program needs to be self-supporting. Nearly all properties in City must register, including SFR, ADUs, condos, duplexes and larger apartment complexes. Rooms in owner-occupied houses and vacation rentals, institutional housing such as dorms or government housing not included in program.

July 1 2014- 10+ units must register
5-9 units by January 1, 2015
1-4 units must register by zipcodes between 2015-2016 (My two properties have to be registered by Dec. 31, 2015)

There will be an online system to do the registration. $175 per unit to register, with $2 for each additional unit.

Cost for a City inspector will be $130 per property, with $25 for each additional unit. Private inspectors will set their own rates.

Comments from attendees included that it may be time to sell their rental properties within the City of Seattle, especially owners of SFRs. One participant wanted to know whether those implementing the program were landlords themselves.

About a dozen Washington cities have adopted similar programs of rental inspections.

WLA has concerns about shortage of housing, affordability.

Ron, McCallister, Small Business Computer Security: It takes 7-9 minutes to figure out the 7-8 character password. Double that password and it now takes 16 years - a phrase is the best password e.g."My dog's name is Nash."

Also a password such as my!pa$sword will be virtually unbreakable.

Credit card number over the phone is written on a piece of paper for most vendors and medical offices. Everything written down for the tenants must be secured, including ss#. Neatdesk allows you to scan all information into the cloud. Is the cloud area secure?

Seven years to maintain documents. C-Cleaner ccleaner.com will get rid of everything on your computer. Wipe data takes 2-3 hours. It must be done about 7 times to delete everything.

Crosscut shredder better than long panel shredding.

Everything you put on the internet is open, unless it is SSL. Your information is sent in plain text. Faxes can only be read by fax machine, but if it is scanned, it can be read.

houses2rent.com is speaker's website

Malwarebytes.org - get this for free and check your machine

It is not sufficient to do your banking on a separate browser, it should be on a separate computer.

Colleen McAuliffe, Dispute Resolution Center - offers mediation in small claims court. Both parties must agree to use these services. 75% of the cases mediated are landlord tenant cases, and mediation is able to resolve about 67% of these.

Mediations can be done at their center, charged on a sliding scale, for any disputes that the parties cannot resolve on their own.

Aaron Neilson, Collection Realities Today: Does a lot of landlord tenant work, and collections outside of this.
Bank accounts, automobiles, what assets they own should be on tenant rental applications.

Judgments last for ten years and can be extended for another ten years.

Charging order can be used to access business equity in a self-owned business.

Evan Loeffler, Ten Steps to Evict:
Be sure to follow the law

Robert Cannon, ClearView Wealth Management: 1031 Exchanges have been in place since the 1920s. Standard financial planning focus, diversification among asset classes, having lots of liquidity.

Steve Kotz, Glass Doctor: Low E glass is so important, put it on sunniest windows. Purchase price is based on specified glass manufacturer. Window framing used is vinyl; aluminum is terrible insulator. Vinyl technology is about 25 years old, and has improved.
No material lasts longer than vinyl for window frames.

Art Conrad from Seattle City Light, focused his remarks on multifamily properties. More than half of their clients live in multifamily units. Powerful Neighborhoods is a free program for multifamily owners with an auditor to identify energy-saving measures and to install new light bulbs, showerheads and aerators.

Common area lighting program of SCL may be of most benefit to multifamily owners.

John Wells, maintenance. Single lever faucets, plumber's grease is great for getting O-rings on. Copper pipes and water pipes that burst can be repaired with quick connects with rubber connector. Plumber's goo can be removed with heat gun. A continuity tester can check that plug-in is wired correctly. Electric tester with laser that will tell you the temperature to identify heat leaks, insulation leaks.

Peter Wright, Paragon.
$676K per unit for Bravern, $178,000 per unit in Seattle now, $250/sf; cap rates are below 5 now. GRMs up from 11 to 12.7 this year. Loans are more readily available for performing buildings.

Seller financing has made a good comeback.

A lot of lending along I5 corridor, but not in Kitsap. Rates for 5 years 3.2%, 7year rate 3.9%, 10 yr at 4.6%. Seattle prices are up dramatically. Eastside is a great market; sales volume has gone up in Tacoma, prices not so much; Snohomish picking up, but concerns about Boeing.

130 of 300 transactions this year in King, Snohomish, and Pierce were in Seattle. 7 cap average in Pierce, Snohomish is 6.7.

7500 new units will come on line this year in Seattle, highest level since 1991. Another 14,000 units are being built.

Assumptions that there will be continued strong job growth to support all the new units coming online. $3/sf is the estimate that builders are using.

Older, smaller buildings have lower overhead, will be able to offer lower rents than the large new complexes.

Dupree and Scott have a map showing where all the new complexes are being built, concentrated in Ballard, Capitol Hill and S Lake Union.

The key to real estate is location, location, location. If you were thinking of buying now, buy on the fringes. Look for upside potential. Look at all pricing indicators for value: price per unit, per sf, cap rate and Gross Rent Multiplier.

Cash flow or appreciation? Short or long term?

Peter Wright thinks cap rates will start making their way back up again, based on connection to interest rates. He thinks we may be getting close to a bubble again, that cap rates will lag closely to interest rates.

There have not been many foreclosures on multifamily in Seattle, most have been bought up.

Happy Investing!