Real Estate Blog

Since July 1, 2024, most California landlords can collect only one month’s rent as a security deposit, furnished or not. A narrow exception lets some small owners collect two months, but one month is the default, and getting it wrong exposes you to disputes and penalties. If you own rentals

Depreciation is one of the few parts of owning a rental that works in your favor while you sleep. It is a paper deduction. You are not writing a check for it, yet it lowers the income you pay tax on. We have seen owners run a property for years

A vacant property is a different risk than an occupied one, and your standard landlord policy knows it. When a rental sits empty past a set number of days, most policies quietly stop covering the big losses. That is the moment a fire, a burst pipe, or a break-in turns

Staging a small multifamily building is not the same as staging a house. With a duplex or triplex, you are selling two things at once: an income asset and a physical property. The buyer is part investor and part owner. If you only polish the kitchens and forget the financials,

Selling a building with renters in it is a different job than selling a vacant one. You are not just managing a transaction. You are managing people who live there, leases that carry weight, and a set of tenant protections that are stronger in Los Angeles than almost anywhere else.

House hacking a duplex means you buy a two-unit property, live in one unit, and rent the other so a tenant helps pay your mortgage. In a market as expensive as Los Angeles, it is one of the few ways a first-time buyer can own real estate and cut their

The question we hear most from owners is some version of “is now a good time to sell?” It is the wrong question. The market matters, but it almost never decides the outcome by itself. What decides the outcome is what you plan to do next. The best time to

Knowing the short-term rental rules is one thing. Actually getting registered and staying that way is another. This is the process side: how a Los Angeles host moves from wanting to list to legally operating, and how to keep that status without slipping out of compliance. If you have not

Navigate LA’s Home-Sharing Ordinance: primary residence rules, 120-day caps, TOT tax, registration, and enforcement penalties.

R1, R2, R3, RD, and RAS zones in LA: what each lets you build, ADU rules, and how to verify your lot.