American Wealth Builders

[Peter Katz]

Has anyone heard of these guys?  They are offering turn key, cash flowing, single family properties in the $35k range, many in Columbus, OH and Georgia.  They state that the properties are in good repair with both tenants and management in place and are yielding 13-15% returns.  

[Nancy Brook]

I don't think this is a complicated business model. I buy a house for $35k. I'm getting $625 in rent. The place is fixed up. The renter is in place. I'm paying $50 for property management a month. (Yes, AWB has an exclusive property management company they deal with.) I'm making 15% net. I'm not banking on appreciation. Seriously, this is the easiest way we have bought houses. In contrast, we have other homes in Florida that we have bought at discount. We fix them. We work with the property managers. We establish the insurance, etc. THAT is way more difficult.

And for those people who are snooty about buying a $35k house, I would say there are many investors who would be thrilled to be able to buy a house! In markets across the U.S., owning real estate is out of many people's reach. I live in Montana and Florida, and the Montana market requires at least $100k for a basic rental. The only way I could become an investor was to find properties in other markets. Right now, my boyfriend is selling two rental houses in Montana to buy four to five rentals in St. Pete, Florida, and Columbus, Ohio. He can easily triple his rental income with this move.

Columbus is a great market for investing, in my opinion. You have Ohio State, state capital and lots of industry. We are looking at buying more properties there. We have owned our first property through AWB for a year and have not had any issues. Our second property we have had for about four months and it was sold with a long-term tenant. We recently bought a third at auction so this one we have to set up ourselves. I'm questioning whether this was a good idea, even though the property sold for less than our other two. We have to buy plane tickets to Columbus, stay at a hotel, interview property managers, determine repairs needed.

@Andrew Wydra, AWB has a fantastic business model! So many people want to be investors and do not have the time to go to other markets to find houses. I'm doing this in a small degree in Florida.