Hmmm I wonder how MyUSA, HouseBuyersUSA, 21st Century Property, 888 Real Estate get their property?

A good buyers agent is worth their weight in gold.

A good multi layered marketeer will charge you gold with platinum highlights.

Like property scout, I am all for good money to be made, but 100-500% markups makes Henry Kaye look like a Red Cross worker – his crime? He only operated in Australia. Just NOT on – and sadly ASIC is powerless to help. Do not get caught…

Anyone intending on investing in properties in the USA I strongely encourage you to make the above website a part of your research. It appears excellent on the surface and if I go again, I will research this website first and bypass the buyers agent.

"apologise for ruining the secret but http://www.americanrealestateinvestments.com supply to all of the agents out here in Australia, see for yourself…"

Thanks property_scout for bringing it to our attention.

For my 2 cents if it's wanted.

The best way to eliminate "brokers", is simply to check the owner of the property, and get it from them.

Most major counties in the US, have websites that are completely free so you can find out who the owner is of any property. As a side note, the state of California does NOT give out owner information on their websites. You can get California owners, but you will have to use a pay service to get that.

In Kansas City, Jackson county is the largest county, you can check the owner of any property by simply going to their website, and search by address. Keep in mind, it could take up to 4-6 weeks for a new owner to record in Jackson county. They are painfully slow in updating records, even though 90% of closings these days are done with e-file.

John

I am not surprised at all at what Property_scout is reporting.
We have supplied properties to many Australian- and international "buyers agents" and many of them (although not all) are looking to mark up the price to make huge profits, on top of any commission they were due.
 As you can see on some American/international agencies websites, they're now offering to bring an "International buyer", which is really saying, pay our fees and we'll get you more money than your house is worth.

Getting the property from the source is greatin theory although I'd need to second Nigel's comment right above mine that it's a minefield, a deal might look great on the surface but once you dig deeper into it, that particular block might be a "warzone", the property has liens on it, bad roof, poor management – any of a number of things. Unless you have a person on the ground, or someone with a competent team, it's a can of worms trying to do it from 10.000 miles away.

With rentals you always need to be so careful, we are trying to stay away from the highest yielding ones now after seeing some issues with management etc, and I'm just not entirely comfortable buying homes anymore for $30-$35K that on paper brings you a return of 15-18%, once you have a few months of unpaid rent, the yield drops significantly and maintenance also tends to be more costly with those types of tenants.

We are going down another route with most of our investors, something we have done for years and consistently got returns out of, although we still do rental properties in select areas of the country, where we have a very string network of people working with- or for us.

[email protected]

Richard a sourcing fee of 1400 is very reasonable for that type of work (given how much effort goes into getting contacts and starting things like that up) particularly if you can get direct access to vendors. Think you are on a winner with your uk venture. A lot of the stuff we see here in forum is MLM but if you can create a scenario with vendor – you – buyer there should still be value. What are holding costs on some of the lower priced props?

Property Scout, thank you for sharing the information.

I would like to have a chat to you about your experiences and have some questions for you, however, your profile states you are ‘not accepting emails’. Would you please send me a private message?

Thank you.

The problem is that for many it is far easier to just flog cheap properties to people and charge them a fee. Firstly you should do your research very carefully. One of my clients is a police officer whenever he is given a property he rings the local police station and asks them about the area. Before meeting me he dealt with another company who he found that 9 out of 10 deals were in bad areas. With my deals he had no such problem. Australians do not understand that cheap properties are often in slum areas and need to be avoided at all costs. Make sure what is happening to values because in many cities prices are still falling. In other words if you use a buyers agent ask them who they are using on the ground, because in many cases they are using agents who see Australians as there saviours. This happened in 2005 it will happen again many Australians will come to regret there purchasers

How am I self promoting I am stating my experience. I was doing this through an education group. However I am happy to discuss the process with anyone that is interested.
By the way I I notice that Richard Taylor is promoting the UK. You will not find anyone more ethical or with more knowledge than Richard. He has been posting on this site longer than me.

For the record I am not asking anyone to use my service however for some reason people seem to resent paying for advise and a service that will save you time and money. I have spent a great deal of my own money to both educate myself and establish contacts with one of the best operators that I have ever worked with.

Now if you want to do this yourself thats great. However you will need to invest the time to gain the knowledge and in America that is not an easy task.