All Forum Posts by: Bill Baldwin

You can't borrow money in Japan for negative rates, however they are low.  Home loans go for roughly 0.5%, investment property loans for 2-3%.  Personal loans are anywhere from 3-18%, depending on your credit, etc., but they're generally for smaller amounts.

@Axel Meierhoefer Is there a reason you can't keep track of all your properties using a simple Excel spreadsheet?  That's what I use and it's great - I can tell you the high and low performers and why within seconds.  I find multiple bank accounts more of a hassle than anything, assuming you don't mind doing a little bit of regular monthly accounting (read: 15 minutes a month, which I'd go as far as to say is a good thing as it actually results in you seeing the numbers each month).

Asia markets are not down anywhere close to 50% this year.  

Thanks all.  I called Golden Valley today asking to speak to the broker or Daniel's supervisor, but he was in a meeting so I the secretary took my contact information and I explained to her what had happened and that I would be filing a complaint with the BRE.  I plan to file in the next day or so when I have a chance and we'll see where it goes from there.  Thanks again everyone for the help.

@Sanjeev Advani thanks for the info.  As I mentioned he was an individual managing the properties and so there was no owner portal, etc.  He literally hasn't given me one piece of information on income/expenses for the entirety of 2017 (other than verbally I would call chasing and he'd occasionally tell me the odd person moved out or in).  So I have literally zero information about cash flows in and out for the beginning of January through the end of September 2017 other than I have tenant contracts from 2016 and the time of sale in October 2017 and so I know the building was tenanted and rents were collected.

Hey all - wanted to post here asking if there's any recourse I can take against my property manager who took all my money and ran, and also provide a public service announcement to help anyone who may consider using him in the future.

First some back story.  I'm an American currently living abroad in Tokyo, Japan, and a couple years back I decided to buy my first rental property in Bakersfield, CA.  I'm not from California, but I knew someone local who (I thought) I could trust.  Shortly after the purchase that all fell apart, and so I was in search of a new properly manager.  This was late 2015.

I asked around on the BP forums and got in touch with another remote Bakersfield.  She told me she had been put in touch with a local real estate agent who was looking to do some property management on the side and had been using for a few months with great results.  She put us in touch and he agreed to take my property on, and we both signed a property management agreement in January 2016.

I won't go into the details, but he stopped sending me rent claiming high maintenance expenses to which he coming up with excuses for why he couldn't send me the receipts for.  Things finally got so bad that I decided to list the property for sale in mid 2017 in an attempt to get what I could of my money back.  I used the property manager as my selling agent because I still held out some hope that he was being honest with me, and overall it just seemed easier as I didn't know anyone else.

Bad decision.  He botched the initial sales deal, costing me $30,000 from the initial offer I received, but I was finally able to sell.  After he received his sales commission I never heard from him again.

He still owes me 9 months worth of rent for the 6 unit property which gross came to roughly $3,000/month.  He refuses to answer or return my calls to his cell phone, emails, or calls to his work.  What's even worse is I'm told that I'm likely to get audited by the Japan tax authorities because I've listed a previously cash producing asset as suddenly having a gross income of $0 for the entirety of 2017, which is seen as a major red flag.

Does anyone have any recommendations for what actions I can and should take given my situation?  The proximity makes things a bit difficult for me, but I want to get what I can of my money back and also not let a scammer get away so easily like this.

His information is listed below.  Please avoid at all costs if you ever happen to come across him in the Bakersfield, CA area.

Daniel Mena
Golden Valley Real Estate Group
BRE Broker Lic. No. 01422062

Hey Zach - I live in Japan as well and actually bought a place in Seattle and California last year. Buying so remotely is not easy... I think to find a deal you really need to just keep talking to people, expect 99 dead ends for every 100 tries, and find someone local you feel you can trust.

At 0 down you're looking at a limit of roughly 30x your annual taxable income, but it's not a hard set rule. You can still find places that cash flow, some that don't as well. Really depends on location and building age.

Dylan I see you have a military address so I assume the answer is no, but if you or a significant other have taxable income in Japan you can get zero down investment property loans at very competitive rates.

Half in cryptos and half in REI (excluding maxing out 401k each year) is actually exactly what I'm doing. Can keep scaling up the properties slowly while cryptos build a base for large purchases in a few years.

Crypto currencies.  Namely ethereum.  They're gonna explode in the next couple years as they become easier and safer for the average investor to buy and more mainstream.  Nevermind when the first crypto currency ETFs are created...

Plan is to sit on cryptos for the next couple of years (and keep getting 100% LTV deals here in Japan, but not an option for most people on here) then cash out on the cryptos in the 2018-2020 range (hopefully when prices have cooled down across the US a bit!) and invest in high end multi-unit properties.