All Forum Posts by: Cindy Grigsby

@Tom Ott Thanks for the clarification. I'm using that term because that is how they presented it to us. This property however, was never intended to be a turnkey BRRR, just a flip. We were forced to do a BRRR because we lost so much money on it and then could not sell it. They presented it as a 'turnkey' for investors who wanted to buy a property, rehab and flip it as they would handle the entire process from beginning to end....or I should say, that is what they promised but they did not deliver.

@Jaron Walling Good question, Jaron. We actually met the whole Mainstay team at their office. They explained they not only do wholesaling but that they also do joint ventures and manage rehab projects as well.They also post this info on all of their emails when they market their properties. They won over our trust. We were out of the country on vacation for 3 months and we had agreed beforehand that this was how it would be done. They had no clue what they were doing. We lost so much money, not only on the lemon of a property they sold us, but also because they did such a poor job managing the rehab. They needed quick cash and got it from suckers like us.

Sure, I had actually written about it in a previous post, here it is: https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

It was the worst experience ever. They gained our trust, underestimated the scope of work (they are supposed to be experts), and really screwed us over. I have heard that we are not the only ones.

Do not go with Mainstay Property Group. They are gaining a very bad reputation here in Indy. They prey on out of town investors. We were out of the country when we dealt with them and trusted them in buying a wholesale property. Not only did they take advantage of us and the 'out of town' situation, but they were responsible for managing the rehab work and did a terrible job. 

I also worked with Hoosier Custom Construction, Bryant Burdine, last year and it was the absolute worst experience we've ever had. He started out being really nice and responsive and built up our trust with him. Then it came to the end of our project and he did not finish it. He left us high and dry and went on a luxurious vacation. He would not respond to ANY emails, texts or phone calls. He did not give us items that we had already paid for: new HVAC, all new kitchen appliances, hot water heater. He kept them.We tried several times even asking him if we could rent a truck and pick them up. Nothing. We think he must have taken  our money and moved on to a bigger project and placed our items in the new project.  We finally had to get another construction team to finish the work. In addition to Bryant not completing the work after we had already paid him, we found his work was very shoddy, and completely poor workmanship. We found he had hidden undone plumbing in the walls- he just put the drywall right over it thinking we would never see it. There were SO MANY PROBLEMS with his work I cannot even list them all here. Leaking toilets not installed properly, gaping hole in roof, holes left in siding, tile laid incorrectly which will need to be replaced, not installing the back splash properly. He really did a number on us. I would run away from Hoosier Custom Construction. They are bad news. This one hurt for a long time because we really thought we could trust him and we couldn't believe it when we realized that he ACTUALLY ran off with our money. This was a nightmare.

That being said, I contacted Edwin at Triple E Property Management and he was and is FANTASTIC. He helped us find the new construction team and really helped us in our time of need. He manages our property now and does a great job. He can vouch for me about all the shoddy work that Bryant Burdine did. 

Hoosier Custom Construction (Bryant and Jessica Burdine) did the rehab work for our first rehab project. We bought the house with Mainstay Property Group who used Hoosier Custom Construction to do the rehab work. We were out of the country and we could not manage it ourselves, so we agreed to let Mainstay manage the rehab. BIG MISTAKE with both of these companies.  

This is a typical general contracting nightmare where the GC earns your trust, takes your money and then moves on to the next job.

Hoosier Custom Construction has a very nice looking 'family oriented and professional looking' website. Do not let that fool you. Here is what they did to us (don't let it happen to you):

All the work they performed was SHODDY and way below standard. The pics they sent to us while we were away looked great, but pics always look better than the real thing. What we did not see was that they covered up severe plumbing issues in the walls by simply drywalling over them and hiding them. After we got a tenant living there, the walls started leaking water. The bathrooms were unusable. All the pipes were backing up all the time. We had to spend thousands of dollars to fix these issues that Bryant covered up by drywalling over.

They left a giant hole in the roof, which led to leaks we had to repair.

They installed the toilets incorrectly. We had to hire someone to install them the right way.

The tile was laid incorrectly which will eventually result in cracked tiles. We will need to get this fixed but due to all the other issues, we cannot afford to address it at this time.

(This is only the beginning! The list goes on and on and I will be happy to provide details to anyone who needs them.)

Here's a real kicker: We had paid for all new appliances. Bryant kept assuring me he had them and would install them. Then he refused. We assume since he left us without finishing our project, that he just put our new appliances into the next project he began working on as it probably paid more money.

Bryant(Hoosier Custom Construction)  left us high and dry without finishing the job. We were out $10750 just on work he was supposed to do but didn't finish. He would not respond to emails or texts. He would promise to 'get us on the schedule' but never did. 

In addition to the $10750, we had to pay an additional $12,000 just to repair all the things he did wrong! And it keeps going! We continue to find more problems on this house due to the repairs he did not address AND to the repairs he did incorrectly. We are out about$23000 now due to Hoosier Custom Construction and it just continues. We continue to find more of his problems that we have to correct.

We have notified the Attorney General about this. We will most likely never recover our money, however, my main goal is to warn other hard working, honest investors, like us, to stay away from these guys. Bryant was really nice to us in the beginning and we totally trusted him. I was so disheartened, bewildered and disappointed in him when the reality set in that he actually did this to us. We did not see it coming.

(I have already written about how it was to work with Mainstay Property Group in a separate post. In a nutshell, it was a nightmare and we will never work with Mainstay again as we cannot trust them either.They should have been checking all of Hoosier's work but they did not. We could not check it ourselves since we were out of the country. We sent money based on Mainstay telling us all was good. And obviously, it was not.)

Thank you Sachin for writing your story here as well. The more people that can be warned the better. Before I had worked with Mainstay, I was actually encouraging my 75 year old parents to work with them and I'm SO glad they decided to wait and see how they finished with us! Now, they know better. 

Your story sounds SO similar to ours (see post above). They low balled the budget for the SOW so at the end we paid about $30K over budget. We also did not know our water meter was red tagged by the city. Mainstay did not let us know about this 'small hiccup' at all. $5K to get that little problem fixed. 

Then after our tenants moved in, we discovered ALL KINDS of problems due to shoddy work by their management company (Hoosier Custom Constuction). Just recently my new property manager contacted me regarding 'leaking walls' as Hoosier Custom Construction hid the plumbing problems in the wall by just covering it up with the dry wall. 

We certainly learn from our mistakes...just didn't expect it from Mainstay. We thought they were a good solid team...definitly not.

I am sorry to hear about your experience. A similar experience happened to us while working with Mainstay Property Group in Indiana (just like Sachin Bhat posted above).  It was the worst experience ever and we will never work with them again.

It might but I guess I'm not the one to ask about that as I've never just bought a house. My only experience is the entire project management which was( and still is )a nightmare.

Well, I honestly am not writing to ruin their business or anything. There are several people who have had good experiences with them, but they totally 100% messed up with us. That is our experience...and it was a bad one. I would have really appreciated someone telling me if they had a bad experience as well. Take care!