Anyone on the board belongs to or have used Cashflow Capital?
If you are a member, do you think you are getting money for value?
I am thinking of using a buyer’s agent in SE QLD, any recommendations?
Appreciate your opinion.
Hi Loveinvesting, welcom to the site.
I have talked to Spiro the director of Cash flow Capital but did not find enough value in my opinion for what they are proposing. If I recall correclty they charge something like $500 up front and they credit it against their commision which is 2%of the buying price.
After looking at what htye have in stick and working on the figures I d idn't see how benifited me. Unless of cours you wnat the lazy way….. I beleive that if you a bit of time on your hand yu can do better than what they are offering without all the fees.Happy Days,
Beck
Hi Beck,
Thanks for the feedback. I got an email reply from Spiro about his fees and it also didn't add up for me. My only fear is that the property may ended up not generate the +ve cashflow that the company said it would. What do I do then?
Cheers
Loveinvesting
Hi Loveinvesting,
My pleusre. As for what you can do… don't get yourself into the situation in the first palce. DO your own reseach by calling local real estate agent looking up rental in the area. I feel buyers agents are for people who have a high income and don't have the time or desire to look or do there own work. From your name I think you enjoy the process. All you have to do is start like you have.
Happy Days,
Beck
Hi
I contacted some buyers agents recently to buy properties in SE QLD as we live on the far south coast of NSW. I was astounded at the figures they were throwing around to find and negotiate a property purchase for us. Especially as I had done all the research work and had narrowed down the areas I wanted to invest in.
They were talking about an upfront fee and around $7500 on purchase and were telling me that as the area was hot that they could secure a deal for around the asking price as no room for negotiation as the properties were selling within hours of being listed.
They were right about properties selling within hours of being listed, but as we had done all the research work already, we decided to fly up to Brisbane for 3 days armed with contacts and a list of properties. We stayed with the brother in law. The trip cost us $1,000 all up inc flights and car hire ….. well worth the investment as we found two properties where we negotiated $10k off one and $21k off the other,
So not only did we save approx $15,000 buyers agent fee's but we negotiated $31,000 off the combined asking price.
We also have properties in Vic and SA, which we flew into to personally purchase, so we were happy to travel to do our own bidding again, …… It's just that we had difficulty finding the time to travel to QLD and getting time off work.
I personally think the price of a buyers agent is over the top, but I suppose I look to invest in the lower end of the market and I love the research aspect of this business.
anyway, .. not sure if this helps you
Martin
Hi all in the forum.
Some thoughts on buyers agents. I am one myself and agree that some agents over charge for what they offer.
Also be very wary of agents that are selling properties direct as they are probably getting a double commission.
For our company we charge $3300 including GST and that covers everything from finding a property, preparing a report with all key information for due diligence, organising building and pest reports, conveyancers and then checking all the rental paperwork…
An alternative is our service for $1,000 which analyses a property for you with all the same information and then offering alternatives based on our research.
I agree with perera that it is cheaper to do your own research, although I find investors or prospective investors can find themselves coming to us as the amount of time to do a due diligence on an area effectively can be 10 hours plus once you check out the web etc, and then the negotiation is even more time.. So if you work on $50 per hour it doesnt take long to get value.
Anyway if you are interested in using us then please flick an email to me at [email protected] even if you want to see some info about what we do and a sample report.
Hopefully more importantly you have some hope restored in buyers agents.
Regards
Simon Swift
0423 052 513A great one in SA QLD is Chris White from Prosper Group email him at [email protected] (please mention that Xenia sent you!). He specialises in both commercial and residential property, is a very skilled negotiator and most importantly he is a sophisticated investor. (ie has a property portfolio that keeps growing not just a few negatively geared properties). Very worth even having a chat with.
If possible I would like a bit more feedback about this group since I am thinking of becoming a paid member. Why would their fee/commission not be worth the price? There are properties on the site yielding 10%+. In my searches I have not found a single property with that type of yield. At first glance it would seem the fee they charge would be paid off very quickly by the value they provide. What am I missing?
Hi obediah,
Welcome to the website….. I only gave my opinion based on the feeling I had after my interaction with them. If you feel confident go for it and let me know how things turned out.
All the best,
Happy days,
Beck
It doesn't take much to google many of the sites on the cashflow capital website and discover them for yourself, plus many others. Save yourself the 2% and do some legwork.
Hello,I attended a seminar by these people and my gut feeling was that they were not so trustworthy, but this was only a feeling. I am a signed up free member, so receive their emails of cashflow positive properties. Most are about 6-8% return on investment, not quite up there with the 11 second rule. With the drop in interest rates, I have been looking at some better deals through realestate.com.au which anyone can access. However, I am still researching, and yet to purchase a property!
Hi there all, some great comments here, can I just add my thoughts.
I believe that in any judgement on value for money of Cashflow Capital (or any buyers agent, or any other cost for that matter) is simply to add this cost to the financial analysis that would be (!!) used in determining the viability of an investment decision. I don't recall seeing the fees charged by Cashflow Capital accounted for in their own feasability analysis numbers. But, if the numbers stack up then I would go for it.
What do you mean by trustworthy? Surely if you own the property, get the lawyers to review the contract, and ensure that the rents received are as advertised then trust plays very little part in the transaction. I agree that the 6-8% are not particularly attractive. However they appear to have 10% properties on their site which if legitimate seem extremely appealing since I have not found that type of return in other places
I have just signed up as a gold member. I went with them after a lot of consideration. They have been very easy to talk to and seem trustworthy to me. They have been in business for a couple of years now and I can't find any dirt or bad press on them. I haven't purchased a property with them yet but they have already helped me rearrange my loans etc.
The reasons I went with them is that I had bought one property and had stalled there. I am the type of person who knows that property is where I want to invest, I have read every book etc, yet still lacked the confidence to source and purchase properties. I feel that if Cashflow Capital can help me purchase properties like I want to then the fee is worth every cent. If you are confident to do the work yourself then go ahead. But for myself I feel CFC is the way to go.
Cashflow Capital makes money by retaining customers and those customers buying more and more properties. The way I look at it is if they were out to rip people off they would have been exposed by now and wouldn't be in business any more.
They are now as I speak sourcing two properties, doing the due diligence and setting up my finances so that I can start asap. I have only been a member 2 days. My goal is to buy six more properties by the end of 2009, if CFC can help me achieve that, then it is worth the fee.
I will keep you up to date as to how things progress.
Cheers,
JP.I have been to a seminar from Cashflow Capital.My feeling is, they use a range of services eg financial advisors, property managers, buyers agents, etc. who all get a commission. Which is fair if they have provided a service, and you know up-front what the cost is.However, if you invest in your own education, you can learn thses skills yourself, and re-use them multiple times without the commission expenses, to grow your property portfolio much more effectively. Buyer's agents are for time-poor people who don't have the energy to go out and do it for themselves. Very useful if you have more money than time.Often they are able to negotiate a better price than an inexperienced investor. But check the numbers yourself. If they say the return is 8%, then do your own numbers (including the buyer's agents costs)and make sure the return is what it is supposed to be. And make sure you can use the agent of your choice to manage tem, or that you are paying a market rate for agent's commission, not eg10% management fee per week.quickchick
I have found that buyers agents are too expensive. You have to pay 2% on the purchase price and if you buy a $400,000 property that is $8,000. That is a lot of cash to fork out.
Plus your negotiation ability and flexibility is limited as you have to go through the buyers agent. For this reason I do not use CashFlow CapitalInstead I recommend using http://CashFlowInvestor.com.au It is a property finder service, but not a buyers agent. So you pay a monthly fee and that’s it. No hidden fees. If you buy $1,000,000 worth of property you pay the same standard fee as if you bought a $100,000 property. It works out to be WAY cheaper than Cashflow Capital and cuts out the middle man of the buyers agent.
CashFlow Investor also limits its members to only 100 members, so competition is extremely limited. CashFlow Capital has loads and loads of members so competition for each property is ridiculous. More competition means higher prices and lower rental return.
Ryan McLean | On Property
http://onproperty.com.au
Email MeThis is a free service: http://searchinvestmentproperties.com.au/
I found these guys very unhelpful once they took my money. Beware if you are considering using them as they are all care and no responsibility!!!
I can't see how this is legal
It appears from a quick look at the Cashflow Capital website that they are operating as buyer's agents and selling agents in the same transaction. If nothing else it is a huge conflict of interest and I wouldn't feel at all comfortable dealing with any company who takes a fee from both sides.
I think this is something that the authorities should be having a good look at as this practice is becoming rife in the property marketing sector.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. If you don't have an account, you can register here.
