All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Even though I’ve seen this topic pretty late, let me add my feedback. I have two properties that are managed by the same company. I have been happy with my experience so far. I’ll mention some relevant aspects.

They are accessible and respectful; they communicate in a professional manner. I am by no means a seasoned investor so there were instances for which I got stressed and tone of my e-mails changed as well, but they responded kindly and we talked about how to resolve whatever the issue is. I would think that for the same company to decide not working with you, you really have to cross the line. And reading your e-mails, it sounds like you crossed the line. Otherwise they are good at kindly responding to “worried investors”, I know from experience because I become one of them occasionally.

As can be seen in this topic too, the “main company” OCF cares about the performance of the management company (the one you call ZZZ realty). My situation is different than yours, I bought my property from OCF and I can observe that they don’t have the mindset of “forget about us after we sell, figure things out with property management”. In that regard the main company does not abandon you after the purchase. If you think things go wrong with property management, Engelo and other people in the main company are also there to help if necessary. This provides another level of confidence in the property management service you are getting.

In the past there were instances for which they waived some of the PM fees that were listed in the PM agreement. I occassionally receive higher than usual rent because tenant pays late (If PM company doesn’t pay me the difference, keep it and just act as if the rent was not late, there is no way for me to tell as an out of state investor). In the light of these I think your “ZZZ Company” are not selfish, they are not trying to nickel and dime investors. I did not see any reason to think that they are being dishonest during my experience with them for the past 14 months. If I do I’ll let you know, there is no reason for me to write inaccurate feedbacks on BP.

I wanted to write this message because unfortunately customers write feedbacks or publicize their experience almost exclusively when they have a negative experience. If everything goes smooth, we don’t feel the urge to spread that info. This causes an overrepresentation of bad experiences online (this can be seen in google comments about almost every restaurant, even if the place is stellar there are numerous one star reviews. I guess this is the human nature). So hopefully after this message the people researching about “ZZZ” company (through reading Engelo’s posts) are going to know that not every customer is frustrated. Thanks

I believe inflation adjusted plots are much more meaningful. It is very hard to extract info from a 100-year chart without knowing how was the inflation throughout that period.

When we look at the inflation adjusted S&P500, we see that in 50 years the value increased 2.5fold (Say, from 1960 to 2010). If you compare this with rental property investment in a no-appreciation area, it is like making your 1 house 2.5 houses in 50 years. Many real estate investors do way better. Engelo and many others probably multiply their inventory by 2.5 every couple of years.

I am not an expert but wanted to add this note, since I feel disappointed when I see people deriving conclusions from inflation unadjusted plots. They don't have much meaning when the numbers are nominal. And when we focus on the inflation adjusted plot we see that this chart is no mic drop at all.

Hi,

I’ve purchased 2 turnkey properties. My experience was with Ohio Cashflow and you can click on this link for my review of them:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/92/topics/607571-ohio-cashflow-llc-review-2018

And there is another topic which is like master topic for Ohio Cashflow reviews:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/92/topics/185261-ohio-cashflow-llc

To summarize very briefly, Ohio Cashflow and owner Engelo Rumora have a very strong online presence, which provided trust (You can easily spend couple of days devouring the content they’ve produced online). I’ve bought two houses via them and was very happy with the experience. One thing to always keep in mind is this business is never completely passive, even though it’s a turnkey you become a property owner so expect to spend a little bit of time on your rental estate investment every now and then. It is not like depositing money in your bank account and collecting interest. Another thing to keep in mind is, needless to say, you almost always pay more than the market price if you work with a turnkey company. That’s how they make money.

But if you ask me are these profits worth the time you spend on your investments, the answer definitely is yes. It’s not completely passive but it’s almost passive. And each time I read some property management horror story on this forum, I feel lucky that I worked with Ohio Cashflow.

Another option that I would like to mention is Andrew Fidler and his company LaPlante.I have never done business with him but he has some stellar reviews in the forum. His presence in forum and reviews he received also gives me the impression that he is a trustworthy business partner.

You can learn more about these people/companies by googling them or searching them in forum. Good luck!

Thanks for the response. I also discovered that with Payoneer it is much easier to receive payments from US registered companies but there are regulations&restrictions if you try to receive funds from individuals. Thus payoneer is not as free&flexible as a conventional bank account, which kind of explains why US government allows people have such "restricted" accounts.

Hi,

I am a non-resident alien living in the US. Since I have an address here it was not hard for me to open a bank account. Other Non-US citizens I know also want to invest in the US but opening a bank account is a challenge (it is the topic of multiple discussions in this forum).

I came accross this service called Payoneer. They claim that you register to their system and they provide you US bank account details as if you have a local account. They advertise that people use them for collecting Airbnb payments. When you listen to their advertisements it sounds like the perfect and simple solution to out-of-country bank account problem.

However, I believe there should be a reason that opening an account from abroad is hard. I don't see a reason why Patriot Act, money laundering concerns etc wouldn't apply to Payoneer. Thus I am skeptical. Currently it sounds too good to be true.

Does anyone (especially foreign investors) have experience with collecting rents via Payoneer? How was your experience with them? Any input is appreciated. Thanks,

Hi,

As a relatively new investor I also share other newbie investors' wonderful feelings about BiggerPockets. Thanks to everyone for massive free info provided.

I would like to point out an issue that I believe could be improved.

In blog, youtube channel or forums we come across titles like "from 0 to XX(some double digit number) units in Y years!". When you click and read/listen to details what you learn is, reality is more like "making the downpayment for XX units" rather than from 0 to XX units. An example is a recent newsletter I've received:

Mail title is "From FedEx Job to 51 Doors in 3 Years". When you click on the link you go the topic "WOW!! What a long way in 3 years!!". We observe that the description "from FedEx Job to 51 Doors" is added by the editor, the original topic title did not imply that.

When we click on the topic and read it we see that a successful investor tells his story of making downpayment of 51 Doors with a massive (500k+ dollars) help from his business partner. Still it's an inspiring story but a more accurate newsletter title would be "From FedEx job to making downpayments for 51 doors with my partner who provided most of the money". Less impressive but more accurate. The original author told the story as is and did not sugarcoat it.

Maybe clickbaits are inseparable parts of Newsletter business, I'm not an expert on it. But I don't feel completely comfortable about "encouraging" people in "buying" (meaning making the downpayment for) many, many units in short amount of time. That would almost always mean a huge leverage, debt. Many people are on the other side of -the- debate, which is leverage vs owning the properties debt-free. 

If another financial crisis happens sooner or later, I suspect that for the case of many people "from 0 to 50 properties" stories will look less impressive than "from 0 to 1 fully-owned property" stories. Clickbaity titles overlook the risks associated with accumulating debt, thus might be misleading for newbie investors. Every website owner would love to get more clicks but I don't know if it is worth taking the risk of misleading people.

Thanks,

Hi,

I’ve purchased two properties via Ohio Cashflow ~6 months ago and I would like to share my experience. Before I made my decision, people’s reviews helped a lot so I would like to help future investors make a more informed decision.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the experience. I will comment on what I liked and what were some of the “bumps in the road”.

About me:

I am an academic, I do nerdy things to make a living. I’ve never bought/sold a house before my deal with OCF thus I am inexperienced when it comes to investing. I point this out because I know there are people out there who are looking into investing in turnkey but hesitate because they are inexperienced as well. I am living proof that you can invest in turnkey without a background in real estate investment. My experience so far was very satisfying.

My experience with the company:

+ I've reached out to them. After initial phone talks and we decided that it is a good match, I informed them about my goal: I have Y amount of money and I would like to purchase houses that have 2X% (two times X, not 20+) net cap rate. (An idea about the numbers. 3X (three times X) = a cap rate that you would consider a good deal even for a REI professional living and working in Toledo. As an out-of-state investor I hoped for 2/3 of it, which is roughly the average cap rate OCF delivers.) You know the rumor that turnkey companies exaggerate numbers and you never get what was written on initial proposal, this is not the case for me. If I calculate my actual cap rate after 6 months by using their convention (Subtracting insurance, tax, property management from gross income) numbers match, thus I am getting what was promised on my proposal. In that regard I can say that they deliver what they promise, there is no sugarcoating in the marketing/offer phase.

+ I’ve surveyed the forum a lot about which are the good parts in Toledo to invest (different people’s views on A, B, C class areas etc.) and I can say that my properties are located in good neighborhoods (one is B class, other one is like A-, B+ish). The neighborhoods that company owner Engelo Rumora describes as “rough” in the forum, they don’t sell houses from those neighborhoods as far as I can observe. In that regard their promise of selling solid B class properties was fulfilled for my deals.

+ Formalities can be taken care of very easily, they are using the online system called DocuSign and you can sign everything online. This way paperwork is very easy to deal with.

+ I am very happy with the property management company as well. They are also very responsive. (PM company is managed by OCF)

+ One of my properties was already tenanted. It has been performing very smoothly, zero unexpected expenses + having the rent steadily in my account every month. Thus that property was like the ideal turnkey experience so far.

+ Renovation of my 2nd property took a bit longer than expected. When the renovations ended, it took some time to find a tenant. But in the end when property managers found a tenant, they have signed a 2-year lease which was good news. Also in the property management agreement it is stated that PM company charges you a month’s rent if they find a new tenant for you. However, due to this delay we’ve experienced and the fact that property wasn’t occupied when I bought it, OCF sales team told me that they waive this “new-tenant finding fee” for me for my first tenant thus I was not charged. They are not greedy. You as an investor also shouldn’t be greedy and it’s a perfect match :) (To prevent a misunderstanding: I knew the property was being renovated and unoccupied at the time of purchase, they've informed me during the offer.)

+ In my 2nd property a well pump issue showed up after the renovations have finished. I roughly had to pay a month’s rent for that maintenance issue.

Expenses like these (maintenance, vacancy) are inevitable in RE business so I deliberately mention them here to give you an idea on what to expect. RE is not a magical business that prints money no matter what. OCF is transparent about this. They help you resolve issues that show up, thus my last two bullet points are not negative feedback about the company. They rather are remarks regarding to nature of RE business.

Some remarks:

+ It looks like as OCF becomes more well-known and establishes itself as a more and more trustworthy company, prices are slightly sliding upwards (cap rates slightly decrease) and threshold to make a deal with them (initial price that you have to pay to buy a house) increases. This is my observation, I may be wrong and would appreciate corrections. Anyways, this is understandable. Initial investors who made deals with them got better deals because there were much fewer reviews available to make sure that OCF is trustworthy. Less known OCF, fewer reviews, fewer investor testimonial videos means investors taking a higher risk while investing with them, thus it is natural that those people were having more appealing deals. Today we’re expected to pay a bit more because we know that we are doing business with a well-established, trustworthy company with a huge online presence. We know that we are taking a smaller risk, which naturally means a higher cost. The reason I am mentioning this is, if you are thinking about buying a house from them, it is very likely that the earlier you buy the better deals you’ll get. (I am not confident when it comes to future-telling thus this is just my naïve prediction)

I am happy to help anyone who is interested in learning further about my experience with the company, you can message me. If this sounded like a shilling post (new member, first post etc) I would be happy to provide ID’s and proof of purchase to forum moderators if needed as well. When I feel like I have enough new info about\experience with the company that is worth posting an update, I may post an update.

Thanks OCF team for starting my RE investment journey.

Thanks,

Ahmet