Hi I’m Cory’s wife Jo, and unfortunately I have been away with work whilst all this has been happening on the forum.  I would actually like to clear things up a little bit.  Yes my husband and I are very, very hurt and this loss has had a huge impact on our lives.  It is an experience that we went into with a lot of trust and unfortunately have learnt the very hard way.  Things can turn bad.  We basically want to worn other investors. 

I would like to touch on just a few of the points that Brian raised in his email.  I’m not into “he said” – “she said” but I want to make things clear for other investors that may be mislead.

Unfortunately when we signed up for the house we checked and were told, through emails conversations and advertised on Chad’s website that we would make and easy $15,000 – $20,000 profit.  As Chad and his family were good friends of ours and because of the “easy profit” we signed up.

After the renovations we were offered $7,000 profit, less the extra expenses and taxes. This was a huge shock. More fool us for not taking it at the time, but it was made out that it was easy to rent out and continue making a profit.  After all the house had just been nicely renovated.

Brian did place tenants in our house, however with the second month, rent was behind.  We queried Chad.  Chad was told that they will catch up in the third months rent (it appeared Chad was just as shocked as we were).  It was then time for us to find a new property manager as the arrangement was only short term.

Our new property manager went to collect the rent.  He was faced with a list of problems with the house, which he also agreed with. (This was only three months after the house had a $25,000 rehab done)  This is also when the stove and fridge got stolen.

We approached Chad and Brian about the problems, that were beginning to surface with the house (this did not include the bathroom. – we were not aware of this until the following month).  We were met with a nasty letter saying that he would fix these things and would have nothing further to do with the house.  Because of nature of this letter we decided we would deal with the problems ourselves trying to maintain our long term friendship with Chad.

More problems have appeared since, 1) Bathroom – bath/shower.  The bath support was not used ending with the bathroom being re-done.  2) Electrical wires shortening twice,

3) Wrong outlet used for the air conditioner – causing it to overflow, freeze and damage the carpets, 4) Leaking pipes to the bathroom and laundry,   5) Leaking roof,

6) Problems with stumps.  Quoted cost for a partial re-stump is $7,000, this has now lead to large cracks in the walls and the doors are unable to be closed.  We have to find the extra money to rectify the poor workmanship.  This is only some of the problems that we have encountered.

The house is not worth the $95,000 as originally quoted by Chad and Brian.  We will be lucky if we are able to get in the $70’s.

Fortunately for Brian when he took his 35 investors through the house it was still in the final stages of being rehabbed.  During these inspections the investors were not using baths, running water, climbing up on roofs, checking power, checking outlets or air conditioning and waiting for stumps to go.  

Of course if I saw the house as we had seen it in photos to begin with, yes it did look good.  I guess this is why Chad recently advertised it on his website as a wonderful house they had done up.  This website was for an upcoming event that Brian was coming to in Melbourne to talk to investors about.  If there have been so many good houses then why use our house with all the dramas and hardship that we have had with it, used as an advertising ploy to gain more sales?

Due to all our problems with the house we wrote to Chad asking him to remove our house from the list of successful renovations on his website.   We do not want anything to do with having other people facing the same problems we have.  We believe this is why Chad’s website is currently no longer.

We have kept quiet until we came across our house on Chad’s website as an advertisement for more sales.  He was such a close friend, which hurt us the most.

We feel cheated, used, hurt and betrayed. It was only when we saw our house listed as successful on Chad’s website that we began to explain our disaster.  It is with much disappointment that this situation has occurred.  We mean no harm to Chad or to Brian’s business however our story has not been successful.  And we are deeply out of pocket. 

Please buyers beware…

Regards Jo Robertson