All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

@Lindsay Banaszewski I signed up for his "Freedom Mentor" program several weeks ago, and have not heard a single word from them.  No phone calls at all.  The only things that happened was I got put on his email distribution list and probably got dumped into his lead generation database.

My professional opinion is to stay away from these so called educators.  They offer nothing to help you achieve career success - in fact they typically require loads of money up front in order to join their program.  They are just trying to sell books, information and obtain leads that they can then sell to other companies looking to profit off your data.  PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE understand that most of this information is free on BP and that is how I got started doing my first few deals.  I did them without a mentor (I don't encourage this for everyone).

If you really want help achieving success with your first deal, reach out to a seasoned realtor or investment specialist like the Holton Wise Property Group, Marshall Reddick, or a local investment specialist from your local REIA (Real Estate Investors Association). Most of them will help you for FREE. Yes I said free. They don't make their money off of educating you, but actually helping you find that investment property and do the deal right.

@James Park Thanks for your thoughts, and yes I mostly agree with your assessment.  The area around UGA and Athens in general is doing very well - great point to be made.  I do think that Lawrenceville still has potential though especially closer to the downtown area where they've been revitalizing it.  The city's been doing a lot to make that part of town more attractive over the past few years.  Plus Gwinnett Medical has expanded into some of the abandoned shopping centers to help bring some life back into the area.

I am born and raised in Atlanta and can tell you the hot spots very easily.  These are all within a 20 to 30 mile radius of the inner city.

• Cherokee County - cities of Woodstock, Canton, Holly Springs, and Ballground.

• Cobb County - Mostly east Cobb and some parts of northern Cobb county in the Marietta city district.  If you go into west Cobb, stick to Kennesaw and the surrounding area.

• Forsyth County - Anywhere in this county.  It's a great one all around.

• Gwinnett County - I grew up here and there are pockets you now want to stay away from.  Stick to cities of Suwanee, Buford, Sugar Hill, and Lawrenceville.  Parts of Duluth are ok as long as it's closer to Johns Creek.

• North Fulton County - This includes Alpharetta, Johns Creek and Sandy Springs.  Sandy Springs has more crime typically while Alpharetta and Johns Creek are family suburban areas.

• Paulding County is up and coming.  While it's slightly further out, it's becoming a hotbed for new development.

• Dekalb County is ripe for seasoned investors in my opinion.  It's got a lot of older properties that need rehabbing, plus there is more crime in that area.  I wouldn't start here as a newbie.  If you stick to properties around or close to Stone Mountain you'll be better off as Stone Mountain is a state park and much of the area around it is kept up fairly well.

• Stay away from south Fulton county.  There are too many pockets of bad neighborhoods that make it difficult to determine if your property will appreciate properly or get the right tenant / cashflow.  If you want to buy in the city of Atlanta you really need to know what you're doing and have some serious cash in the bank as I've seen many houses just sit there for quite some time.  The seasoned investors with lots of cash are the ones that are typically more successful here.

I have tried to gain access to the course myself, but have not had success. Nobody got back to me. Their course is nothing but a sham to gather email addresses and other data to sell off to data miners. They don't actually have any training. These so called gurus would not be trying to sell training if they were so successful. The whole reason they're selling training is because they're not actually flipping properties. Your best bet is to network at a local REIA and find a good private lender or other investors who will do a joint venture deal with you.

I personally use the Kingdom Trust Company out of Kentucky.  They have been pretty reliable and reachable so far.  Never had a problem calling them up to discuss a transaction, and their employees all seem very knowledgeable on the whole SDIRA space.  Sometimes they can get backed up when it comes to email so if you have an urgent question, I recommend calling them directly.  Also, their website/client portal is not that great in comparison to other custodians.  It's very basic and does not update in real-time.  They require their customers to fill out PDF's and email them to an investment associate rather than fill out an online form in the client portal.  This is a challenge I think most SDIRA custodians have however from what I've researched.

Overall, I give Kingdom Trust 4 out of 5 stars.

https://www.kingdomtrust.com/

Stephanie if you made zero sales, my first question is what you were doing with your time. As a real estate agent you should be generating leads, following up on those leads and assimilating data that you can offer to your clients to help them make their purchase painless. Why are you wasting money going into further debt by going back to school? Most colleges these days are money pits because they cost so much and the supposed jobs you hope to get afterwards don't pay back in terms of ROI. Forget school and be a full time agent / Mom / Wife. Use the money you would have spent on school to invest in real estate deals or pay for RE services that will help you generate more clients and retain them. If you join a broker like Keller Williams or BH&G Metro Brokers who have good education programs, in addition to you being a motivated self-starter, you should do just fine.

I live in Atlanta, and experience the rat race that Joel Owens talks about.  I'm in the process of making deals as a result and transitioning into investing full-time.  I don't have part time ambitions in mind at all.  I recognize that to succeed, you have to devote your time fully to the dream, and that's what you have to honestly do.

Hope this helps!

Also, you don't have to be an accredited investor to go out and simply buy a tax lien at the county courthouse do you? I understand the SEC has some accreditation rules for REIT's and such, but that's not the direction I'm heading in.

No doubt that it has risk, but it's an easier way to get into the business rather than spending thousands of dollars buying your first properties right - especially for those with low cash? Just to be clear as well, I already have a self-directed IRA so I don't need a custodian. My custodian just mentioned that there are turn key services out there to help you find, purchase, and manage the tax lien thru its life cycle to completion whether it's the redemption process, or foreclosing on the home. They couldn't tell me what companies other clients have used though for legal reasons (they don't offer advice).

You guys are mentioning funds - not sure what that means in this context. Is there any service you can think of that helps you track down the county listings, purchase them, and manage that purchase with a SD-IRA custodian? There has to be some legitimate companies out there that aren't scams.

I'm curious to know if anyone knows of any national and / or local tax lien services that offer a turn key sales solution for those wishing to invest liquid cash or self directed IRA funds into tax liens / deeds. Anyone know of any good ones? I can't seem to find anything reputable thru Google searches.

Would a real estate attorney be the best choice for this?

I just started working with self-directed IRA's myself and I can say that they work exactly the same as a regular stock based IRA. The only difference is you will probably pay slightly higher management fees with the self-directed custodian of your choice. The models are still the same though. Real Estate purchased in a traditional IRA is tax deferred, and real estate in a Roth IRA is tax free. I prefer using Roth IRA's because the money is tax free and you don't have to worry about potentially higher taxes down the road. Tax rates typically go up and stay up.