Anyone Used USInvest ? Looking at buying US propety through them

First time I have ever heard of them on this forum. Curious do they charge you a fee to see the properties upfront.

Alex

Although I am not familiar with these guys, $3k is a reasonably typical sourcing fee per property, I have seen figures as high as $5500.

In our case we charge a membership fee of $6k which includes sourcing for the first 2 properties.

IMHO one key thing to watch is your end buy price on the properties. How well has the company bought when they acquired them? How much markup have they then put on top of their costs before selling them to you?

Sometimes a lower sourcing fee may be more than absorbed through a very steep markup on property prices, hence the need to be careful about that.

Hope that helps.

Regards,
Ken

I have not heard of them, however I would be concerned about any company charging upfront fees, In the first instance I would want details ie addresses of some  properties they have sold over the last 6 months. I notice on their site they have example properties, no addresses??

I would then research these properties using the  zillow site to establish last sales, this site will also provide you with details on other sales for that area/subdivision. There is also information on county fees, estimated rental range and lots more.

WI

My 2c. I have never heard of this outfit either, but I’m sure with some DD, it will be easy to find out about them.

I am always concerned with those companies that charge an upfront fee. This almost always means they are “brokering deals” and can never be 100% positive the properties are still available. Many of the “large” turn-key companies have multiple brokers in place, thus these properties can get sold very quickly. The upfront fee ensures they make something for their perceived effort. They offer a “refund”, by just finding you another property, that they can push on you. There would be no reason at all for the “owner” of a property to charge you an upfront fee to buy his/her property, just would not make a lot of sense for them to do that.

I always recommend that any buyer, should be buying from the “owner” or an agent/broker representing the owner. This information is fairly easy to obtain, as most US counties have owner information on their websites. There are states that do not disclose owner information, but you can pay a small fee to several websites that will give you this information. I would be happy to give you those websites if your interested, I would post them on here, but I’m not sure if the mods would get upset.

John

Hi Guys,

I have also Bought through US Invest and have not really had any problems to date. They sold me a property in Ft Lauderdale Florida and the property seems to be ok and was rented from the moment i bought it. I was worried about getting ripped off so they sent me a property valuation report from a florida registered valuer so that eased some of my concerns. The renovation was done to a high quality (according to the building inspector that they recommended)

There where a few hidden costs that popped up like the LLC registration that they charged me $499 to set up. (Later i found i was able to do it online for around $250) but apart from that i have no complaints.

US Invest only sells in Atlanta and Florida and i am keen to look at investing somewhere else. Anyone got any ideas or good companies to recommend?

Cheers,

Reace.

Hi Reace
It would be great if you posted the address to give formites an idea on what they are selling.
Cheers WI

for me, i just bought the usa property power pack from steve last week. i haven't gone through it yet, but perhaps it could help you out too for foreign investing in the usa. have you gone through it?

Just google the area"s of interest  and grab some address Then jump on  Zillow.com and type away .Though some times the information is a bit misleading .You should be able to get an idea of the different  prices and other information for those markets. Why pay for some thing that is  free.

If that does not work  pick an good real estate agents and email away. You can get all this information for free .

I too am interested in finding out some more information on US invest.
Roger ,Reace is your experience still a positive one??

Well, I know close to nothing (save what I read here) about investing in the US, so I'll stick to what I know. For a start, let me say that, if you're indeed a conniving spruiker, at least you're an eloquent, well informed one, so kudos on that at least. I'll leave the rest of the US related dissecting to those who know their turf, and concentrate on what I can answer –

 
Well,  it's not exactly refundable, it's refundable to those who end up using your services. Big difference there, unless I'm mistaken?

Well, again, no – you're making MORE money when people buy your properties, but you're certainly making (a fair amount of) money from people who become members, and furthermore, if they end up choosing not to buy from you, that money, if I understand correcly, remains in your possession. Not saying there's anything inherently wrong there (well, there might be, depending on what content becomes available for that fee), just trying to use the correct phrase here – You certainly DO make money from people "becoming members". Again, if I misunderstand your refund rules I apologize in advance.

It's not your current model, because I don't sell properties to anyone, nor do I buy them from anyone (except when I'm conducting business on my own behalf) – I represent others as their agent in Japan. The only similarity here is that we're both in the real-estate business, as far as I can see – you sell a product (property owned by your company, wherever it may have come from), and I sell a service. I also charge in advance, by the way, but this is for people WHO WISH TO USE MY SERVICES – not for people who want to see what it is that I do or what kind of property they can get by working with me. Again, not saying there's anything wrong there, only that we're nothing alike.

 
I don't quite get your drift there – you research the market thoroughly, locate what you think are the most suitable deals for your purposes (selling them, rehabbed, to clients), then purchase those properties, rehab and tenant them, so they're owned by YOU and are already making YOU some decent money, whether you're holding on to them or selling them at a profit – if you were to stop right there, and just sell them on the open market like everybody else that research would have already been well justified, in my view. Instead, you choose to sell them to a list of selective clients, who "qualify" by paying you $995 in advance. And, once more – not saying there's anything inherently wrong there, but let's call it like it is – your research is for YOUR own benefit, and clients who choose to consider purchasing from YOU are considering purchasing YOUR properties, found by YOUR research, at a profit to YOU. The fee that they pay is to see which properties YOU own and are considering selling to them.

Just out of curiosity, should your website potentially display these properties freely, and you were to charge this fee, oh, I don't know, say when a person actually wants to buy one, as a booking fee of sorts and before you go through all the hassle of qualifying them, what exactly would you have lost, save for a few hours corresponding with that person (what I call establishing a relationship with a potential client and don't charge a cent for, but maybe that's just me)? What do you stand to gain by forcing them to pay this only to view potential properties (and I've yet to read what else they get, asides from your precious time informing them of aspects of the purchase)?
 

I understand your pain, I really do, and we also experience alot of this, but unfortunately, this is business – you get window shoppers, tire kickers, time wasters etc. We also charge in advance for our SERVICE (which, again, is nothing like your model, as we don't buy, own, transfer or sell property), and take the time and effort to explicitly explain to potential clients that the properties they see online are samples, may not be available by the time they qualify and pay their fees, and should be used as guidelines to what can be achieved. We only charge when someone decides to work with us, though, and make sure they are aware that they are now being charged, as we will now be spending our resources to assist them in their intent to purchase in Japan – NOT when they're considering it or in exchange for informing them of what we can do for them or what's involved. Like you, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your model (although, if all they get for their money is your list of available properties and explanations as to what's involved purchasing in the US, I do have a problem with it), just that we're nothing alike.

No offence taken, we're actually very proud of our transparency and lack of "exclusivity" as you call it – and we're very happy to spend time informing our clients how exactly they can take advantage of the market we're in, and what it is exactly that we'll be doing for them, so that they're able to clearly see what it's worth for them. All we do is open up communications channels between cultures and environments that are normally not aware of each other – and if you think it's easy to get the properties that we advertise by yourself, I'd love to see you try and hear how you went – yes, it's possible, once you establish the experienced, multilingual, savvy and well connected team that we and others like us have (and there aren't alot of those out of the big cities and big budgets in Japan, where good cashflow deals are all but non-existent). This takes time and effort, saves a whole lot of time, effort and costly mistakes for the client, and costs a whole lot of money to set up – and this is exactly what we (proudly) charge for. By the time someone from another country finishes chasing up one of these properties, assuming he can convince the seller, realtor and agency legal reps to accept them as purchasers, we would have been able to build him a small but profitable portfolio, probably at half the overhead cost of his single unit purchase.

This is without even touching on the fact that the best deals out there (again, what you're seeing on the website are samples, updated every several weeks – you can imagine some of these properties are offered on and accepted a bit quicker than that) don't normally reach our (or anyone's) website, as they're advertised in a quick email first, and often "snatched" over the phone before they get published, by a qualified buyer who had us (or somebody else) ready to pounce for them. But of course, you know how all this works – the only difference is really in when and what we charge our clients for, and whether this is all that we make (in our case and that of other buyers' agents and proxies), or just as an added "bonus" or "insurance" (in your case).

Again, I may disagree, depending on what it is you give your clients for this membership fee and how exactly you refund them if they're unhappy with the content – and this was what my comment regarding free content was aiming at. I'd still love to hear what it is you offer your clients for this $995 fee because, no offense, charging them just to view listings that you've researched, purchased and rehabbed because you want to sell them at a profit, doesn't cut it for me personally.