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Updated almost 10 years ago,
Discouraged by a Pattern Here
First of all, sorry if this comes off a bit negative. I'm posting it in the off-topic forum because I don't rightly know which forum it belongs in.
Okay, so I've been doing some research into turnkey RE investing because I am stuck in the Middle East for the next few years and I need something that I can take a hands-off approach on. Now, I've been doing plenty of searching and reading lots of forum topics about Turnkey real estate providers and they all tend to go the same way:
"Can anyone give me advice on turnkey real estate providers?"
In reply, you usually see a few posts that sound like this:
"Sure! They're probably all scammers pitching you inflated rent numbers while downplaying the actual operating costs, and the properties themselves are probably garbage. There's nothing about a Turnkey company's services that you can't replicate with your own due diligence. And if you can't do your own due diligence, then maybe you shouldn't be investing in real estate."
For those of us who are stuck abroad, either in the military or contracting or otherwise unable to fly out on a whim, without any boots on the ground in great markets all over the country, there has to be a better answer besides "scammers everywhere!" and "you're not cut out for this!" The other bit of advice I keep seeing is to reach out to other investors in that area, but that comes right back to the "scammers everywhere!" issue and the other elephant in the room, that even if you luck out and connect with someone who isn't out to shank you between the ribs at the drop of a hat, you'll have to give up part of your deal and sacrifice half or more of your profits.
Has anyone ever had any real, actual, verified, positive dealings with turnkey companies? Not just theoretical ones, but actually gone and bought a property from *any* turnkey company, or are we all just going in circles talking about how awful they must be and no one has actually tried it? If nobody can make these work, how is there a market for them?