Jay,

Thought I would clarify a few points as I am the owner of the 94k property you are referring to yet I have never spoken to you or emailed you so it sounds like there may be some chinese whispers going on here……..

In all fairness to Top Rentals the 94k property was nothing short of sensational. It is an amazing property and far exceeded my expectations when I visited the property. The property is in such a high quality area and subdivision. In fact it is the lowest ever sale price in that subdivision and when I last checked all other properties in that subdivision are listed for between 169 -269k.  I bought it for the quality area and was not overly concerned re the 12.56% estimated net return as I feel it is a great return for that area. This is only a guide that outlines what the actual expenses are such as insurance , rates , rental estimate etc. To me it does not make much difference if the return is 11 or 15% I am more concerned of the quality of what I am buying.

Regarding the actual rent achieved it was higher than the 1400 you quoted, it was 1450. I did have an opportunity to accept a 1600 a month rental early on from a very good applicant with a very high credit rating but decided against it as they had pets and I felt the house was not suited for pets seeing it has no fence and I have just installed new carpets. I was the one that made the decision to drop the rent to get a tenant in there quickly as I had purchased a few properties at the same time and wanted rent coming in asap.

Just to clarify some of the other points you raised, "the property was purchased in Feb", it was perhaps offered in Feb but I did not settle until March I believe. (I would need to check exact date)

All up I am very happy with this purchase and would buy this same house again if presented with the same circumstances.

I have also used the services of Mike and Bron in Atlanta (toprentalreturnsusa.com) and am happy with the service. In my opinion a much better option than some of the other groups quoted in this post as they buy direct from the foreclosure market and add a fee which is disclosed and reasonable. There is no "flipper" middle man adding tens of thousands of dollars before the buyers agent offloads the property with an additional fee. They also live in atlanta , in one of the suburbs they source properties for clients.

I have purchased 4 properties through Mike and Bron, first 3 are rented and going well and the 4th has just had the reno completed. The property management side of things has been no different to owning properties in Australia, they let me know whenever there is a problem and it gets dealt with.

I think the key is to pay wholesale, once you add in the flippers exhorberant price increase after they paint and flip the house to you and then add another couple of thousand for the buyers agent you are simply paying too much. leave the flipper out of the equation and you will do much better. You really need to understand how much these flippers are adding to the price, its not uncommon to see houses selling through the buyers agents that were bought for 15k and selling for 60k , be extra careful and don't buy anything if you can't verify what the original sale price is. (I don't mean the 2000 or 2002 sale price I mean the one the flipper acquired it for) you can check http://www.zillow.com or go to the county website to see if you can locate the last sale price.

You may want to read the post on somersoft also, http://www.somersoft.com.au
Emma (also an Australian) offers some great advise on buying direct from the foreclosure market in las vegas. You can read the post here
http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?p=725515#post725515

I have now purchased 3 properties through Mike and Bron.  My first purchase was made late April and the property has been tenanted to a section 8 tenant who moved in several weeks ago. The section 8 process takes longer than the open market tenant. Section 8 is govt assistance (so basically the govt pays the rent). Its great in that I am guaranteed to get my rent paid and on time. The appln process for section 8 can take several weeks as section 8 come out and inspect the property to ensure it complies with all their requirements, they then  ask you to make any modifications to meet compliance and then send the appln to their assessment team to assess the rent. I was advised that the property manager physically inspected the home of the prospective tenant and that it was immaculate so I was happy to accept the section 8 appln.  The entire appln was handled by Mike and Bron, I did not need to organise anything.

My 2nd and 3rd purchases settled 7th July and have been under renovation. The second property is now complete and has a tenant appln , we are awaiting the lease to be signed and returned and the move in date.

The 3rd property is under renovation and nearing completion.

I travelled to atlanta last month to view the properties. I was very happy with the quality of properties I purchased and the renovation completed.  I also had the opportunity to view other properties Mike and Bron had sourced for other clients and the renovations done on those. The renovation teams do a wonderful job and the properties present beautifully for tenancy.

They have also just hired an experienced property manager that will be exclusively sourcing tenants and managing properties for their clients. I believe that them taking control of the management side of things and not relying on local companies to manage the properties allows them to provide a complete service.

I also know of 2 other investors that have purchased through Mike and Bron and have also successfully had tenants placed.

Hi Moggiee,

I recently purchased a propert y through Michael and Bronwyn. Although its early days still I have been really happy with the experience. My property settled late April and renovations are being done on the property at the moment. I thought that if I was able to have it tenanted 4 weeks after the reno was complete that would be a good result. I was extremely happy when I got a call from Michael to advise (about 10 days after settlement) that we had received an application for rental from a good quality tenant wishing to take the property on a 2 year lease.  In terms of the quality of the property purchased I would have to say its amazing value. Michael and Bronwyn took care of everything, they set up the LLC , attended to settlement , connected the services after settlement, organised the reno and quotes  and property management team and of course answered all of the my questions, and I am certainly not a low maintenance customer, I ask lots of questions!

All I had to do was sign the contract and wire the funds to the attorney. Everything was very transparent, I was given details of all of their contacts so I could ask whatever questions I needed to ask.  I have met Michael and Bronwyn on 2 occasions now and I would have to say that I feel that they have their clients best interests at heart. They genuinly want to create a win win situation for clients by sourcing the best wholesale properties direct from the foreclosure market at the best price to achieve tenancy and a strong yield. They also have an eye for value as they themselves are experienced investors having undertaken many renovations and other property related projects here in Australia.

This is the first time I have ever used a buyers agent. I have many properties in AUS but always sourced them directly myself and never thought I would ever engage a buyers agent to buy on my behalf . There is an incredible amount of knowledge required to buy well in the US and doing it remotely without a team on the ground in the US I feel is just too difficult. I have been wanting to buy in the US for sometime now but never really knew how to go about it even after investing a considerable amount of time researching deals in the US. I am very grateful to Michael and Bronwyn for sharing this opportunity with me and other investors. I feel their service is great  value for money and they are worth every cent of their fee. They truly are offering investors an opportunity to buy at WHOLESALE foreclosure prices (direct from the banks) . I have looked into other groups that offer assistance in buying in the US and i feel a lot of them are selling at RETAIL prices, by that I mean they are flippers, they buy the foreclosed properties themselves at wholesale prices (so now they own them) , renovate them and then on-sell them at much much higher prices to investors like you and me, they are not true buyers agents although they represent themselves that way. Yes its a turn key service as they also organise to get a tenant for you but who is making the profit??? They are…, a very different service to what Michael and Bronwyn are offering , that is an opportunity to buy WHOLESALE, and then add value through the renovation plus all the other services right through to tenancy.

My personal opinion on buying in the US right now is that it is an opportunity of a lifetime, houses are selling for 1980, 1990 prices, way way below replacement value. These prices wont be around for ever, there is a window of opportunity for those willing to have a go. For those of you that have ever played Robert Kiyosaki´s cashflow 101 board game and picked up the opportunity cards in the game where you could buy 40k houses and achieve a monthly positive cashflow of $200 a month and thought thats great in theory but they don´t exist in the real world, right now in the US they do…. These exact deals are available everyday , its just a case of picking up that opportunity card, deciding to take action ,  and putting it into your assets column to start building the passive income to free you from  the rat race.

Of course there are risks with anything in life but if you never take risks you will never achieve great things… Some of my greatest achievements in life have come through taking risks both on a personal and a financial level.

Good luck to all of you that decide to have a go. I have no hesitation in recommending Michael and Bronwyn.
 

Can anyone tell me what LVR Bankwest will do on a block of 5 units on 1 title in a large regional town of WA? Also up to 80% do they use in house mortgage insurance or PMI or GE?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Also are they strict on serviceability?

regards,
Karina

This happened to me yesterday. I saw a property that was well priced and offered full price knowing it would sell quickly. Asked for a 7 day finance clause and 2 days for structural building inspection.

Property has just been listed on the internet on Tuesday and I signed contract Tuesday night. Askeed vendor to present offer next day, my offer was not presented next day, however the agent did hav time to put a sign up out the front of the house, take internal pictures also.

Next day same thing I pleaded with him to present my offer as I knew it was being advertised in fridays paper and it would sell. Every excuse under the sun. The vendor was not home, he was busy etc etc anyway this continued unntil friday where he assured me would try and visit the vendor again.

next thing I get a call on friday afternoon that someone else inspected the house on friday and offered unconditional contract above asking price.

I was absolutly furios and sent him an email that I would be contacting the real estate institute to report on what had occured.

Unfortunatly the property was not in the same state as where I live so I could not knock on the door and approach the vendor.

I actually have my suspicions about whether more than the asking price was actually offered….

not happy…..
Karina

Hi Mgr,

My thoughts you would be crazy to pay someone else 50k to find you some properties.

I bought in redcliffe a few years back and yes it is a great place. It really is not that hard, get yourself on a plane if you are not a local spend a few days there, inspect every property in your price range, make some offers (negotiate hard), speak to the locals, the agents the councils town planner. I did it 4 years ago and couldn´t be happier with the results. Going through the exercise also taught me so much that I have gone on to get some great deals!

You have it in you.

I know quite a few agents in town if you want email me and I can send you some contact details for some honest agents.
[email protected]

Good luck.
Karina

Steph,

I think those of us investing understand that areas like Kenny Cres (Rangeway ) are the lower socio-economic area of town. In all locations there has to be the bottom end of town. Not everyone can live in the good parts of town.

Obviously there are better areas in Geralton , Mt Tarcoola, Mahomets, Bluff Point etc….and as an investor I accept that.

The way I see it Geraldton as a town is expanding and a lot of funds are being invested there. When the good areas rise in value the price rises will flow onto the outer areas. There will always be a relationship between the price of a house in the good suburb compared to the price of the outer suburbs.

If I lived in Geraldton I know that I would choose to live somewhere like Tarcoola Beach and I can afford to. I am however not buying to live there but rather as an investment and as I have a large portfolio I neeed to manage my cashflow so areas like Rmngeway are right for me.

Would love to hear more from other locals….

I too was reading the book and found the examples to be almost impossible in todays aussie market. I did read a book though (Australian) which I thought was fantastic about aussie success stories.

It looks at 12 “ordinary millionares” that made there fortunes through property investments in australia. They all took different paths, som positive, ,some negative, some developers etc.

A great read

Ordinary Millionares by Jim McNight