Howzit!!

Lekkar! Until you try to sell a development in a world economy thats approaching a cliff – hope I’m wrong:)

I like SA (although it is NOT the way it used to be) and have been visiting Mauritius for nearly 40 years and wish you luck. When I was your age someone said to me you HAVE to walk before you can run. Of course I was right and he…[Read more]

CF,
The funny thing is when people say ‘too pricey for 99% of investors’. What is pricey about an investment that you KNOW will make money as opposed to one that looks cheap but will likely not go far and probably cost a bomb to operate.

Boats are extremely cheap in the US as well, and you can bring them to you and look after them yourself. Most…[Read more]

Buy a Trump Tower 5th Ave apt with a sub4% return and you have no risk with significant upside in CG. Manhattan prices are on the rise in big way.
If you look at the prices listed below you will need to pinch yourself to understand these are BAD market prices – lifting from a low base, but BAD.
http://nycvertical.com/building-sale-bid-523

Buy a…[Read more]

Thanks SS.

It IS possible to do well in foreclosures, but gee you have to know what you are doing… My sister in LV does, but she works bloody hard and has been in the states doing property herself for 15 years. It is possible. but the successful guys are VERY quick on their feet and VERY local.

There was an excellent article in the Fin…[Read more]

<moderator: delete flame> partner with a builder and give him/them one of the properties as payment – assuming you build 3. There would be far cheaper and less risky places to build mega McMansions in than Mauritius.

If you really want to throw money away PM me and I will give you my acct details. As an added bonus (early bird special?) I wont call you every day at 3am with tenant and tax costs.

There are good buys out there, but why in gods name do people insist on supporting charletans and thieves??

Even people who vehemently attacked me for saying things…[Read more]

Jay,
Can you get me 6000 OC spaces as well???

I’ll try to see if I can dig up the email. I rarely read steve’s stuff, but this piqued my interest. The particular mobile was not high end:) Nor was it an entire park… I forwarded the link to my sister in LV – she had a fit:)

I’ll PM you the link if I haven’t shredded it.

Like you, I have a deep and growing love of storage and van parks:)

Alex,
I got back from long flight yesterday and go to LA in a couple of days.. No need to apologise!

I was going to add this to the comment above, but you stopped me.

I read the infomercial on Steve’s last property power pack US thingy (or whatever the name is) and was somewhat surprised to see mobile homes given as examples with 30% returns or…[Read more]

I have heard Steve has ‘unusual’ ways of dealing with property management. Similar things are done in Australia and although I have personal issues with the hows and whys if you can make it work then great. After all, I suppose that even though it is a bit of a captive market no one is ‘really’ forcing particular tenants to rent from you, so I…[Read more]

…and hope for the best in a couple of years time….It is possible to pay over the odds in Australia as well. You might be able to save the airfares if you buy local. Sure it might be near illegal for agents to price in the same way, <moderator: delete advertising>. Please be careful out there. Casino's in OZ offer a far better return than most…[Read more]

JLH
“…I grew up in San Francisco Bay area, and there was a very famous columnist for the SF Chronicle named Herb Caen, he wrote an editorial type collum on daily life in SF he called it Bagdad by the Bay before we bombed the crap out of Bagdad… And at the end of his life and collum he would constantly compare SF of the 50 and 60’s to the…[Read more]

I only have ever played in the 8cap pond – I failed catastrophically when I ventured outside it. To my way of thinking, I can spend $2+m in Aus and get decent commercial returns or 600k and get the same in premium areas of LA. LA has significant upside for me because no one in my market has what I would consider ‘taste’ and that allows me to turn…[Read more]

Jay – I don’t know what exactly you do, but it sounds interesting and I would suggest any Au person looking at buying in the US have a sticky beak at it. I can promise anyone that without very careful tenant management a dream 15%+ return will end vastly less and negative is easy to imagine. A manager with skin in the game is a very sound solution…[Read more]

I think the point Lawsjs was trying to make was a little more pointed at the tenants and how they treat properties here in the US.

Jay – Yes. Sorry to waffle.

It is also hard to manage managers though. I have always wanted as high end reno’s as possible to try to get the deadbeats out, but it gets lost in translation. In any case 25 years of…[Read more]

GKCH,
See, in Australia we still (mostly) live in a world where people treat people as people.

It just doesn’t happen like that (the US) over here. The biggest single problem with Aus guys doing business in the US is that it is based on a philosophy of ‘if I rip the next guy off I have done well’.

I operate in the US successfully, but for all…[Read more]

As I thought I explained above, I have, there are many drawbacks but yes it is possible.

As for drawbacks Jay just wrote what I think are great pieces on pitfalls under the Detroit 20% return post. I would urge ALL Australians to really look at what he said. Most US investors know that stuff already, which explains why unbelievable returns are…[Read more]

I have bought two properties in the last 3 months – both major loans assumed. Just to add to the appeal, there were layers of VF financing on top – less cash for me to come up with. Day before yesterday I signed docs on another property with – you guessed it – an assumed loan. I have sold one building this year and the purchaser assumed the loan,…[Read more]

Trentjr:Though it sounds outrageously egotistical to say this, I would like to thank you on behalf of a great many australians who may have, or may yet to be, hurt by unscrupulous property marketeers.I have had the great fortune to be able to find (when it wasn't trendy) a US agent who was scrupulously honest and though a salesman helped me find…[Read more]

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.…[Read more]