Disappointed with no deal on turnkey - need some inspiration

[Joel Fernandes]

Hello!

I was pretty excited about "turnkey investments" and what have you, at first.

I looked at a couple of markets, the only market that made sense to me was DFW. I'll explain my rationale:

1. Since I am borrowing 80%, the minimal returns coming from cash flow means nothing to me as long as the cashflow is not negative.

2. Due to operating costs due to loan payments, the only  thing that make sense to me to make good money is a growth market.

This immediately ruled out class C type and even many class B's to me.

I turned my attention then to DFW as a turnkey promoter who's name I don't want to mention told me to talk to a "turnkey provider" in the area. I was pretty excited. But now it is becoming a drag because:

1. They have very little inventory - 1 or 2 houses.

2. Their email turn around time is > 48 hours, this is very frustrating.

3. They apologize about point 2. but apologies mean nothing, if you apologize for the same reason on every call.

4. In their "cashflow" calculations in their proposals, they did not factor in vacancy costs, which was a bit of a red flag since that and if you factor in maintenance costs, does make the cash flow net NEGATIVE.

5. They had some listing discrepancies. A property on their website is listed on zillow with small square footage - and they don't answer me clearly why this is. Could they selling a dud on their website?

6. Some of their previous properties on Zillow's price history shows a > 80 day vacancy. This is quite scary for an investor.

All in all, this seems a really risky affair even if it means high growth. If the cash flow wasn't net-negative, and if these people were more responsive over email, then may be I would be more interested.

But right now I'm really demotivated, and I am thinking if I should turn away from "turnkey" and do all the dirty work that they do than giving them a pile of money. :-(  And may be do something local to my city, since the whole "send an email and wait for a couple days" thing isn't working for me. If my emails don't get responses now, what assurances I have that they will get responses after a deal closes?

[Mike Dymski]

You don't need inspiration...you need persistence.  Check out numerous operators and you will have your answers.  Even turnkey (done properly) is not fully passive...particularly in the beginning.  Good luck...just need more time on the job.