Rob Bellamy

apartment buildings & mobile home parks

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@moseskagan @GeorgeAshdown0 @HistoryBoomer I’m scared she will be wildly effective at pushing detrimental policies

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@GerberKawasaki It’s sad that come November I’ll be voting for the woman who while mayor let my neighborhood of 25 years burn down.

Rather bad and ineffective than bad and somewhat effective at pushing more bad policies through

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@realestatedude0 Impressive

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@joshuarolson @NickGarzilli @mrdougellin @spencerpratt Where in the video does he say he lives in Beverly Hills, idiot?

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@jemelehill He didn’t say he’s in City of BH. Someone who ripped his post of Instagram did. He is Beverly Hills PO which is City of La.

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@AbundantHousing Omg how are you so dumb lmao

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@JakehellerAI Just spoke with one of my friends who’s debating sending his daughter to the ai school the billionaire started

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@LA_Multi_Fam It’s all junk

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@LA_Multi_Fam Always wanted to build. Too afraid. Good for you and hope you crush it.

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@seandsweeney @Adam_Zunder Literally 9/10 deals get negotiated down here

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@BarryRoland19 @LA_Multi_Fam @TAYVAY_ @FNiculete Deadass 😂

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

Top tier social media work

[Spencer Pratt @spencerpratt]

Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down

[Moses Kagan @moseskagan]

What every voter and apparently, the NY Times Editorial Board, should know about housing policy:

1. Rents reflect the balance of supply of apartments and demand for those apartments in a given area. That’s it; there’s no magic. If you want lower rents, you can hope for a recession that destroys jobs and, therefore, demand. Or you can add supply.

2. There is no amount of money that any big city government could feasibly spend that would add materially to supply. This is because, depending on the location, new apartments cost $250,000-1,000,000 to develop… building even a few hundred of those starts to stress any city budget, and many big cities need tens or hundreds of thousands.

3. On the other hand, investors (including pension funds and endowments, insurance companies, rich families, etc.) can collectively **easily** provide enough capital to build as much housing as we need **so long as they are confident they can get a reasonable return**.

To get those investors to fund the creation of the housing our society needs, we must do two things:

1. Dramatically reduce the time & complexity associated with securing governmental permission to develop housing. This means reviewing and simplifying the overlapping regulations that constrain housing production: zoning codes, building codes, parking, ADA, etc. But it also means changing the cultures within the relevant governmental agencies from “default no” to “how can we help you?”.

2. Provide certainty around on-going regulation of apartment operations.

The way investors get a return from building rentals is as follows: They hire managers to lease the apartments, collect the rents, pay operating expenses and any mortgage payments, and then send the investors the cashflow that remains.

But governments all over the country have been restricting the manner in which apartment buildings can be operated in all kinds of ways.

For example: Cities have been making it harder to screen tenants, while also making it much harder to evict tenants who don’t pay. You can see why both of those measures are politically popular. After all, who doesn’t want people to get second chances? And who wants anyone to get evicted? But, as a manager, the combination of those two regulations makes it much harder to predict, with any certainty, that the rent will get paid… and that makes it very difficult to get investors to provide capital to create more housing.

Another example: Rent control. Again, I understand why renters love rent control and why politicians want to give it to them. But, if, as has been the case in NY, LA and San Francisco, city governments hold annual rent increases below the rate of growth in the operating expenses of the buildings, the cashflow payable to the investors shrinks… making them much less likely to invest capital in building more apartments.

In conclusion: For ~every other good or service in the economy, we allow the market to function, and the result is that we have a surplus of choice at all price points (think of food or clothes or cars), which is spectacular for the consumer. If we want a surplus of choice at all price points in housing, we need to get comfortable with the idea of allowing the market to provide it.

And that means allowing investors to build rental apartments *and* allowing them to operate those apartments in a manner consistent with making a reasonable profit.

Remember: Every developer of rentals is either a landlord-in-waiting or hoping to sell to one.

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@moseskagan That guy is such a doofus to be fair.

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

Just saw the 3rd building in LA where the original developer bought it back from whoever they sold it to. One what in my opinion was dirt cheap and 2 of them a few Ms over the rest of the market.

There's a reason that happens. Once you've owned and operated an asset, you and only you know what it's actually worth.

A few years ago I bought a building that on paper looked like a great deal. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't pay close to what I paid, completely separate from market conditions.

And yet if I listed it tomorrow, someone would happily buy it at a price I'd consider terrible.

As much as we all rely on the numbers on an excel sheet, real estate is something you need to feel in person and I’m trying to make sure I never forget that.

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@moseskagan Just paid $2400 for a year contract on a building in LA that will absolutely not be getting a second vacancy in the timeframe (below market rents). It stung.

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

whatever it takes to get on a ballot, double it, triple it, then quadruple it

[Colin Hernandez for California Assembly @colindhernandez]

@muddsicle @LA_Multi_Fam @b2b_mikey Ok let's say you own 1000 housing units, but only rent out 800 of them. Even though you aren't making money on the other 200, you are still making a big profit because you've created scarcity and therefore you can charge more for rent.

It's more common than you think.

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@colindhernandez @muddsicle @LA_Multi_Fam @b2b_mikey My god in heaven. There’s no way you’re actually this dense.

[Rob Bellamy @Rob_Bellamy]

@MrRightKno4035 @realEstateTrent Point is, buyer won’t pay it. In fact, they will pay substantially less going into the purchase, since they will have to pay an additional 4%-5.5% when they decide to sell.