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In florida you might also want to connect with http://cfri.net/ They may be able to help you out of a bad situation and allow you to check out potential partners.
All I can say is if you are going to invest in a US market that you check out the people you are working with. There are some great companies and then there are some not so great companies.
I have noted that in our urban core area here in Kansas City that the #1 buyer for properties right now is from Australia – in sheer numbers, the most houses being purchased are by investors from Australia and other countries outside of the US>
One great resource for what ever area in the US is http://www.NationalREIA.com where you can find local people on the ground that are there for networking and education and can direct you to their members .
I say this because I get on average 3-5 calls from investors who have paid hard earned money for a house in our urban core and it is not performing as promised and the person or company who sold to them is not returning calls. I would rather talk to you before you buy into a deal like this rather than after.
The Kansas City metro area is a great place to invest, especially the suburbs. But I have to agree with the person that said “BUT crime,unemployment and welfare is not a good recipe for success”, he was speaking of our urban core. If you want a cheap house we have them . . . but
Say you buy a decent house for $20,000 that just needs the copper plumbing and HVAC replaced and then rented up. The repairs are about $3,000 to $5,000 then you put it up for rent at $800, then drop to $700, then to $600, it gets broken into and all the copper gets ripped and stripped again. You do repairs and you get over eager to rent up to anyone with first and last months, which is all you get, they trash the house while you work to evict them . . . our urban core at it’s finest.
But if you are willing to spend, just a bit more money on a better Kansas City metro area you can obtain an awesome house, in a more stable (read occupied) neighborhood as opposed to the boarded up urban core, where people have jobs rather than rely on Section 8 and welfare, and where people pay rent. Personally I would recommend investing your hard earned dollars on homes in Raytown and Independence or Kansas City Missouri areas that are in Raytown or Independence School Districts.
Another option depending on the return you are looking for might be to back a local investor who is buying to rehab and sell. Not sure how that would work for an out of country person lending to an in country person, but buying in areas like Lee’s Summit, Blue Springs, Grain Valley, or across the state line in Johnson County Kansas and you can find that you can buy a house, renovate and sell fairly quickly for a $10,000 to $20,000 profit (this is what I do) or even a $35,000 profit on one deal. Backing an experienced rehabber could net you a great interest rate on your money (for example we pay 10%) and if you were partnering on the deal you would earn an portion of the profits.
Running the local REIA group here I see that wholesalers are making money some money selling fixer upper and turn key rentals, I see local landlords making money (but the ones with urban core properties are walking away or working very hard to sell them to YOU), and then the guys rehabbing and selling to first time home buyers are making a killing.
Find out more about Kansas City Area real estate at http://www.MAREInet.com, check out the blogs and the member tool box.
I have seen several posts here of people looking at Kansas City as a place to invest. Not sure what area of Kansas City that some of the posters are buying in, but the areas that are getting sold to the out of state and out of country investors are usually in our urban core.
And the prices and rents being quoted seem high to me, but then I am local.
If you want to check out local properties from Kansas City area investors you might check out some of the properties listed on http://www.MAREInet.com this is the local real estate investment association and our local members post properties for sale in the tool box.
And I can’t believe buying sight unseen, I know of many “scammers” who rehab one or two houses to get pics and use those to sell all the other houses. Or worse yet borrow pics from someone elses house.
There are legit companies selling our Kansas City properties and they do get a premium for the work they are doing, but there are a lot of scammers too who just want to sell you a house.
Vincent has it correct,
I don’t know Vincent but I do manage a local real estate investor networking and education association in Kansas City and we get 2 or 3 calls at the office every month from out of state and out of country investors who have stories of:
1) want to wholesale a Kansas City House they just got under contract, they are offering for $30,000, I get out of them they are paying $20,000 and I look it up in MLS to see it is selling for $9,000 and needs $40,000 in repairs to be worth $40,000 on average all rehabed and rented.
2) buyers who bought 3 or 4 cash flowing rental properties from a full service company operating out of our city (companies I have never heard of by the way) and when something broke or the tenant did not pay, the full service company was gone to the next mark.
So please check out the companies you are working with and the deals they are offering and their on the ground resources to make sure they are legit resources and not a fly by night. We have 1000’s of vacant houses in Kansas City and we don’t want you to be the proud owner of 2 or 3 that you can’t rent or sell because you paid too much.
So if you have bought properties in Kansas City Missouri, I am curious what kind of prices they are charging and who they might be using for property management. I live in Kansas City and have found that everyone seems to be looking for the right property management company that is good past the first 2 or 3 properties – at least for the cheap houses the investors are selling to the out of state and out of country investors.
kurnstur
I have never heard of My USA properties. But I noted their first property currently listed on their site is from Kansas City Missouri.
I am a an Investor, Realtor, and manager of the Local Real Estate Investor Association in Kansas City Missouri and I have to ask exactly where they have a house worth $53,000 as theirs is listed.
If it is in a better area and 100% renovated great. But if it is on one of 1000’s of blocks of our urban core areas where 1 in 20 houses are renovated and maybe occupied and you can buy fairly decent rehabbed properties from $20,000 up, then I have to say that their prices seem very high.
Before buying any properties in the US from anyone I would recommend several things:
1) asking questions right here on this site to see if anyone else has good things to say.
2) contacting a real estate investment group in the city in question and picking one or two contacts there to ask questions. It could be very well worth the $40 to $300 to join the local real estate investment association to save you $1000s in wasted money.
In my position in Kansas City I receive 2 or 3 calls a month from out of state and out of country investors who want to “wholesale” me a property for $30,000 that they bought for $20,000 and who are very dejected when I tell them that I would not take the property if they gave it to me.
So do your homework on the city in question before you buy a house!
