Forum Replies Created
- mihovi wrote:Do you have any idea where you want to buy?
In your research you might want to consider this, as well:
http://247wallst.com/2011/10/19/cities-where-homes-will-not-sell/?utm_source=nrelate&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=relatedand
When houses are not selling that is great news for investors. When people can not sell retail the investors are buying foreclosures. Which in turn keeps the prices lower for us to be able to buy some great deals.
Myrtle beach SC picked up a 13 unit apartment building $200k off list price. That is taking in $5500 hundread a month. If any one wants to see the building and info on it . I am easy to find.
So read the links but think out side the box is all I am saying
jayhinrichs wrote:Alex,would the world not be a better place if everyone invested in the TWH model…. These issues would never arise,, ,You and I work them out… Investor gets there check same day same amount every month. The Singapore group said they are not concerned about properties but want me to explain the TWH Module. So yes I am seeing buy and hold as the way to go .
I can tell the US investors love it. Yes seeing and hearing more about groups that want to buy and hold . So things are changing here in the USA markets.
And the big boys are moving in to the arena.
Key properties in Atlanta the biggest wholesale buyer there just cut off all there resale companies… and are keeping all the units in house…. Yes spoke to the group that picked up 5 of our Atlanta homes good profit on their by the way. They are not taking on clients but just putting houses toward the fund they built…
WI,
You will see over time that there is just going to be on going maintanence in any home in the US… Renters are tough on them… You can get very lucky and get one that treats the home as there own and is neat as a pin…. But the tenants know they are tenants and instead of checking little items out that can be easily fixed will call the Service line and next thing you know you have a weekend call to fix a flicker light because the tenant did not know how to use a dimmer switch… Now your 150 dollars in the whole for nothing. Most people are talking about property management they are forgetting to speak about renters and their mind .
Renters do not take care of properties like home owners I do not care what any one else. The mind set of USA renters is and must be different from other places .I suspect they are the same every where. They don"t care most of the time, even the higher end homes we have similar problems.
So the mind set of renters need to be taken into consideration on buying and holding these properties .
Sincerely
Alex
JLH
AREIJoel wrote:Guys, I truly believe that going through an agent who relies on commissions is the wrong way to go about it from a foreign investor perspective. If you are going to be managing a property from so far away, then you need to align yourself with a company who is not in it for the short quick profits. Sure everyone needs to get paid, but there is a difference between going with a quick sale agent compared with a larger turnkey provider who is not only interested in the long term success of your investment but values your business relationship. It is a win win for each party. Where is the agent going to be in a 1 year from now and somethings goes wrong with the property? Research the companies that have considerable experience – Companies and experienced real estate guys who have not only seen the last boom and bust but have also gone through the 90's crash, and if possible the 80s crash. Also, check if these same professionals are investing along side you and have skin in the game. If it such a good opportunity why wouldn't they be investing as well!Not sure I agree with that statement at all. I have a great company here in Charlotte NC my properties and reputation speak for them selves. During the 80S I was just growing up born in 73. Graduated high school in 92. So spent the next few years in school , and bartending. So to say that we don't and wont know whats going on because we were not involved in real estate in the 80S 90 S come on.
That
AREIJoel wrote:Not too sure if I agree with companies charging membership fees I'm sorry. Charging an upfront fee for information and services that are easily obtainable on other websites are probably not a good idea to pay for if you are the consumer looking for true value.Here in the USA only know of one guy who charges up front fees and most people run from him.
'
Charging up front fees is not some thing I ever saw in the USA. Not until our company started working with international clients did we see people charging for information that is online. Then again we pay 6 % commission for a realtor to sell our homes. This is the norm, with out most people complaining. I can see both sides marketing and expense cost.Starting to understand things more from the international reseller as I speak to more and more of the Australian resellers.
zmagen wrote:Alex SC wrote:At some point the USA Government will support the little investor or smaller investment companies . Who do things ethically and honestly and see there is a need for this type of service.
Seems every one is just looking for the quick fix with out looking at the long term affects this could have.That's very true – I'm just wondering why you think the government is any different in that regard?
Zman Hey Bud How are you? Trust me not disillusioned by any means not happy with our government here. We call it obomanomics and it does NOT WORK…..
Well Memorial weekend here so going to shut down the computer pull out the grill , work in the garden , possible Kayack in the river but NO WORK for a weekend..
Talk soon
engelo10 wrote:Exactly,Thats why I said the average person should buy a ticket and go to the US.
Engelo
Nigel Kibel wrote:Engelo It comes down to the quality of the people you are dealing with. If you have a friend that you trust that is fine. However the average person is not in that position. Unless you are certain about the people you are dealing with on the ground you need to carry out due diligence. After all it is your money that you are spend. Remember a fool is easily parted with there money.You are both correct flying over check things out. Years ago we dealt with a LA investment group. I spoke their monthly. Brought us alot of business. We had a fallen out because we asked Not required clients to fly out. Every one who is investing any where should Take a few days to check out the team, the homes , the company . Stop by some other real estate agencies , property management companies. While you are in the area. Their was client recently in town for a visit with me. Spend some time looking at houses. I made sure to have him right down the other houses for sale, for rent in the area that were not mine. Again this is a little way for clients to check things out. Make sure the numbers an agent or a reseller is feeding you are honest for the area you are in.
Alex
mattsta wrote: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?Curious whats the price of the course or power pack .Be interesting to see what it says about the USA. Being from the USA born and raised. I would like to start looking into books or courses from international Investors on the USA. Need to see and read what others seeing and saying about the USA .
Sincerely
Thanks
florra wrote:Good work speedy gonzales . I laughed when I read your post. How on earth did you find link to the con man? You must have been a detective in a past life. Lol. I have been uhming and ahring about using this mob for the past 2 months but I finally decided today not to. I can't bring myself to parting with the requested $995 just to acces their website without knowing what they really have on offer. They keep telling me about all these great properties that they have guaranteeing 12-18% returns, but I'm worried that the properties on offer may be over infllated building in the promised rent payments into the purchase price. I am yet to find any conclusive reference that this mob is legit apart from one or two people in this thread. They're either the worlds best kept secret, or they have nothing compelling to offer. My thoughts anyway…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 .
engelo10 wrote:Hi Alex,No worries, I am happy to give my opinion.
If you have previous experience with property investing in Australia or the US I think that 3-5 days spent in a city with experts like yourself, Jay, Kyler, etc… is enough to get basic knowledge on good and bad areas and how the market works in that particular area. I wouldnt be seeing more than 2 people at a time. The smaller the group is the better as its more personalized and you can really commit to understanding what the potential investor wants.
Engelo
Alex SC wrote:Okay how about I change title if you flew to the USA what are likes and dislikes for viewing properties and checking out different markets.What we be the amount of time to see each market. ( understand it takes much more then a visit to understand the USA ) so do think can be one trip and you know everything.
Again just looking for feed any feed back thanks
Engelo I know you came over recently jump in and help me out.Seems every one is getting quite..
I like what you are saying.Most clients are one on one with us., If a couple comes to town my wife will venture out with us to dinner. The one on one meeting is what is most important. I did a fly and buy tour recently with a big group. Felt like I was undercover as I played investor. To be honest I felt like being herded through like cattle. Just had a few minutes to look at the homes and buy now was really pressed into our heads. They made is seem like it is super important to buy today .I try to always remind people this is a long term financial decision. Don't be impulsive and don't just jump in to buy ( getting caught up in the excitement). Make sure to do some research and make sure the properties make sense to your own personal real estate plan. Sorry if jumbled it is Monday and catching up on emails …
worldinvestor wrote:Alex SC wrote:Hey All want to get the opinion of investors who took these type of tours. We have been doing these for the USA investors but not for the international clients. We are trying to get feed back on what was good and what was bad on these type of tours.Any and all feed back would be great If you flew over by your self and checked things out.Please feel free to chime in as well Trying to get a idea to see if investors actually like these events and if so why or why not . Things like to many days, would you want to see multiple cities.
Our thought process is no more then 6 _ 8 clients at a time. Again it is not all about numbers but customer service . I do think with to many people companies would lose that one on one relationship . I have been talking with one other market on here Florida if you all want to know. One of the larger groups in the USA just did 150 people three greyhound buses can you imagine.
Thanks
Sincerely
Hi Alex
Happy to give you my feedback but you probably wont like it.Personally I do not like these tour set ups, as every man and his dog is doing this and there have been many negative reports regarding some of these operators, ie quality of stock, hard sell approach. I understand this is certainly not your intension.
I like a one to one, meet the person who is sourcing the properties, view the set up and then start to do my homework on what is being sourced etc.
Cheers, WI
No this is the best answer you could give me. I am 100 % against them wanted to see if we were making mistakes by not taking part of these. We were doing smaller versions with our LA clients. It just does not work for our company. We been a meet and great company. Now of course this was USA client only. Then the international client came on the scene but I still see see this the same way.
I have always liked the travel and sitting down with each client. Naturally our company is not going to be the company that buys and sells the volume any more. Being we are focusing on Charlotte and Charlotte only. These tours seem like cattle being herded through the gates in and out. No time to really get to know any one. Not saying you all should not go on these trips .Just be careful and understand it is very hard to get understanding of a company and it process in 3 days .
Thanks for the response and look forward to meeting some time .Either here is the USA or when I do get over to Australia.
Talk soon
kylermrice wrote:Section 8, another reason our country is in the trouble we are. I hate government housing! Our taxes for the people that can't pull there own weight.I feel all the government programs. Lets start drug testing all of these people. My wife works for her tribe ( Catawba Indian Nation as a grant writer ) This is basically like working for the federal Government under BIA. Now they get random drug testing , hair testing , and all other crap. Yet we are paying alot of these people to sit at home and not work. Obomanomics is got to go .
I am sure their is legitimate people using these programs. By far I see most of these people just taking advantage of the system and teaching their kids how to do the same.
How is Kansas city going , see alot of investors back in the market their been alot of promotion from USA and international clients alike. Hope all is well
Talk soon
zmagen wrote:Freckle wrote:MY guess is they can't do it without guys like you. For any chance of success they have to tap into credible industry players to have any hope. I think they're dead in the water otherwise.Spot on, been seeing some interest in Japan as well, and it does seem like they don't have the time, inclination or are simply not in the gambling mood to be reinventing the wheel when there are people on the ground doing it for reasonable markups – they are more than keen on cooperating with locals with good reputation, and are a pleasure to deal with administrationally, as you are just one of many similar operations they work with, and they've got the process down pat (for better and worse). This isn't just a US trend.
What worries me if these big guys do come in and buy the 1000S of homes every one is talking about. Lets be honest how fast can they work. With the length of time to fix homes .With this help drive the value down even more with vacant homes.
Then take all the variables like renting the properties, as well as fixing them ( the time involved). I see this as even a bigger mistake selling these in bulk packages if this does occur .At some point the USA Government will support the little investor or smaller investment companies . Who do things ethically and honestly and see there is a need for this type of service.
Seems every one is just looking for the quick fix with out looking at the long term affects this could have.
dan luchmaya wrote:You would be better off buying already tenanted homes from other companies. The property that I purchased fro0m TRR settled in July and reno completed 2 months ago and still no tenant. TRR finally came back to me and said that I needed to do some more reno works to attract a tenant.
What a dud!!!Not defending TRR. What I am saying is that as a wholesaler, this is the problem with real estate. I have homes on our website that are rented and some not rented. The problem is you can never guarantee anything. I have had some homes rent quickly when others took months. The renter in the USA if you can ever figure out who and why, man you would be rich.
There are going to be investors that want homes vacant so they can help with the process. There are people like me that say only buy rented deals. So everyone will have their opinion.
Which leads me to the guarantees that I am seeing BY USA companies ( Complete Crap ). How can one guarantee anything in life?
The USA companies and resellers raise the price so high that they can squeeze one or two years of rent into that. Great, but what happens in year 3 .So please take this into consideration when some one comes selling that shiny new home on a silver platter with all the trimming. Now on the other hand, do understand when you buy an investment home, it is just that. An investment home. Things do go wrong. Again, this is where planning and preparation come into play.
Reserve funds, due diligence , getting out there and meeting the teams, seeing the homes. This will not solve all the headaches but it is a start.
Now back to Atlanta (THE MARKET IS FLOODED WITH FORECLOSURES ) this is going to be harder to rent without making your house stand out. I can see TRR what they are saying. I am sure your house was brought to similar rehab status as other near by homes. For us we just recently starting adding in tile instead of carpet because it seems to help. So this is where we are adding more funds in to make the houses rent. Anything to stand above the other homes. Which this is going to be a problem in Atlanta for a bit since the whole damn place is foreclosing. Charlotte doesn't have the foreclosure back log, but I see it coming . Just spent this past Mon -Weds driving around looking at homes and seeing the stickers start to go up in windows. I can tell the flood is slowly building of homes .
Which is good for the buying side, but makes the rental side harder and harder to fill all the properties. Yes, you can go with all the stats that people are sending about people moving to different states. Listen, I live here and really? Come on, it still won't help.
The rental house and demand for renters at some point will flop and there will be more homes than renters. Then WHAT ?
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Hi Alex
Good to hear that you are doing very well. All the hard work will pay off am sure. Real estate is a tough business any of the USA teams that have made it through the last few years .They have learned quickly to adapt to the new real estate. I have seen alot of my good friends local investors ( one buddy last 50 houses ) lose everything. My uncle in Greenville SC was building town homes priced from $750k to $1.5m. His whole project went under, along with both his homes. Hard money lenders who were lending and were being used by most USA investors .Now those companies are no longer in business. ( again sorry Jay might piss you off here. ) I blame it on the hard money companies they looked at what they could lend clients money out for and returns they could get. It became a free for all nobody had a check and balances sheet.(GREED )There is money to be made in real estate but there was also heavy losses on both side( USA and International investors ). Good lessons should and can be learned from all this. Both the USA and International buyers should be paying attention to some of these lessons . Two things that should be a main concern is greed ( this was the down fall to many USA investors and lenders ( lets be honest ) and over inflated numbers to justify making the deals work.
Alot of words to say yes hard work does pay off but keeping things simple like you are doing is and should be applauded. I am sure you will have some head aches with your properties along the way it is normal. I would add in there a reserve fund for each property I like it to be $3-5k .I also like to take 1 months rent from all our properties and put this back. This is basically rainy day fund( help to sleep better at night fund)
I agree with you in the main TRR have purchased some great deals for their clients. Just saw their newest deal sales price $80k and rehab $18k Looks like Charlotte prices slowly making sense ( LOL )Charlotte is interesting from what I have researched, I am yield focused and that is what has driven me to Atlanta and that is also why I am now not purchasing as I mentioned in another post the jump in property prices. Trust me Atlanta is a great market I loved the numbers that is why we jumped down their guns blazing buying everything in site. Then we got ( GREEDY and went against my own advice ) Had to pull back and refocus and just be in Charlotte . What I like is all the major USA resellers are coming to one place to get properties in Charlotte so that says some thing for Charlotte and our team here.
Atlanta is just so hot at the moment. Atlanta is hot 80 degrees today again just some humor .I can not argue with any one Atlanta had some of the best deals . What most have not mentioned is Georgia was one of the biggest states for mortgage fraud in the USA. Atlanta was ranked number one in the USA for mortgage fraud at one point. That is why I think we are seeing the deals their compared to other states. ( just guessing now )
Cheers, WI
Thanks
Alex
[/quote]
Okay how about I change title if you flew to the USA what are likes and dislikes for viewing properties and checking out different markets.
What we be the amount of time to see each market. ( understand it takes much more then a visit to understand the USA ) so do think can be one trip and you know everything.
Again just looking for feed any feed back thanks
Engelo I know you came over recently jump in and help me out.Seems every one is getting quite..
triptizehd wrote:Great insight thanks.. Are there any particular companies you prefer dealing with, when you do get insurance? If so why? And do you recommend the services of your own claims consultant who has your back when it comes time to assess the damage and fight for what you re entitled to? I met one at out local real estate investor s association who also comes to your property and audits your coverage before anything happens, making recommendations to add or drop certain features, what are your thoughts?Insurance we use a group Affinity in Kansas city for a blanket policy on all homes we purchase .When we sell and lease it the policy changes. The problem being most insurance companies do not like to pay. It is like pulling teeth to get them to pay.We had AC unit stolen in Dec new unit was replaced .Still waiting to be paid on that and we are in May…
Our banking system is stone age and sucks here in the states..
Sorry we can offer cheaper houses then most here in the USA but you got to take all our crap with them.
Neat little tool
sent you an email as my dates of travel changed
Trewey wrote:Alex SC wrote:Trewey wrote:Hi all,
Just found this thread. I am moving to Melbourne in July 2012, going to finish off uni at La Trobe in Bundoora. Do you all still live in Melbourne or has there been a mass exodus? hahaIt'd be great to meet up with like wise people, I'm only just getting onto this path, no ITIN, no LLC or anything yet.
Matthew
just Google real estate groups in the areas you are looking for. Seems their should be plenty of local real estate investment groups in most of the major cities
Was mostly looking for coffee with like minded people, already have a place to live down there and have a mass of information to use just have not got further than that yet, as I said I am still early on in the process, researching a lot.
Cheers
No worries , that is what I have been doing here in the states. I don't go to the big meeting or very rare. They have one in Charlotte NC monthly they claim 500 to 1000 people. I never counted over 200. If I do go I sneak in very quiet before meeting to see what competitors are doing . then leave before the sales pitches start. My main group is 8 of us that meet for coffee twice a month and discuss what we think is working and what is not working in real estate. All in the group are involved in real estate is some form or fashion. I get more out of this group then any other group.
talk soon
worldinvestor wrote:Jay
forget the $850-900 rental returns, that is why I really like the big homes at the right price, I am achieving from $1000-1300 (8 properties) so far. I certainly care about 20% gross yields, plenty of fat in the deal to mitigate any slippage and that is the point.Personally I don't need someone holding my hand, I appreciate different strokes for different folks.
I want maximum return and when I offload the properties I want to keep ALL the profits as at the end of the day it is my money, my risk regardless of the model.
It is important not to assume that every OZ investor is buying blind, sure there will be those that will muddle and achieve very little, but I am also in contact with some savy investors who research and spend lots of time analysing data and organising correct structures to reduce tax etc. not every investor is tarred with the same brush.
OK, I will clarify, first trip to Atlanta was to view the area and I would recommend any forgein investor to do this, second trip was to view properties, not a necessity however a great opportunity to get away with husband and a spot of shopping at Lenox Mall which I will highly recommend.
I can not see the need to go back for quite some time, no point when you have a team doing all the work. Emails, skype etc is fine, many businesses today operate/survive using this technology.
Cheers, WI
WI
This was a good read and good points. There are alot of ways to be involved in real estate. Saying one system is better then the other . Looks like you are doing just fine. To be honest wish you found Charlotte before Atlanta . The homes and the way you have handled things are the type of clients we like to see come in. While things were down in real estate you really had to go with all clients. Now we are at the point where we can pick and choose who we deal with.Glad things are working out for you in Atlanta. Keep us updated on your trip.I keep saying I am coming to Australia but we got so busy. With the democratic National convention in Charlotte in Sept. I am hoping my wife can get off during that time so we can both do 12 days in Australia.
Talk soon
PS love Skype I am always one there
