All Forum Posts by: Ivan Lai

I liked Alex's (founder/owner of Elite Invest) drive and vision for his company, so I invested with him... biggest investment mistake I've ever made. They've got so many lawsuits they got to deal with, it's no wonder he doesn't have time to run his company anymore. He took a large sum of my money to invest in buying and rehabbing the money. Turned out he couldn't get the permit to rehab, so instead, he lied to me about getting the permit, then squandered my money on things unrelated to the property it was meant for. Blatant fraud. I also got sued by the city of Chicago for Elite's code violations, was listed as co-defendant just because I invested with Elite. Me, being sued by the City of Chicago, for giving money to Elite!!! I had to hire my own lawyer and pay them out of pocket o defend myself against the city of Chicago. No joke, I have the paperwork to prove it. It's become clear that I won't get my money back from Elite, lost so much with them that I'm ashamed to mention the amount here.  I sued Elite for stealing my money and lying about the investment and am still in a lawsuit with them for almost a year now. It appears they're under so many lawsuits and can't get permits to rehab any properties, I wouldn't be surprised if they file for bankruptcy soon. Don't be fooled by his charm and eloquent sales pitch. Think twice before you go in business with them.

I liked Alex's (founder/owner of Elite Invest) drive and vision for his company, so I invested with him...  biggest investment mistake I've ever made.  They've got so many lawsuits they got to deal with, it's no wonder he doesn't have time to run his company anymore.  He took a large sum of my money to invest in buying and rehabbing the money.  Turned out he couldn't get the permit to rehab, so instead, he lied to me about getting the permit, then squandered my money on things unrelated to the property it was meant for.  Blatant fraud.  I also got sued by the city of Chicago for Elite's code violations, was listed as co-defendant just because I invested with Elite.  Me, being sued by the City of Chicago, for giving money to Elite!!!  I had to hire my own lawyer and pay them out of pocket o defend myself against the city of Chicago.  No joke, I have the paperwork to prove it.  I sued Elite for stealing my money and lying about the investment and am still in a lawsuit with them for almost a year now.  It appears they're under so many lawsuits and can't get permits to rehab any properties, I wouldn't be surprised if they file for bankruptcy soon.  Don't be fooled by his charm and eloquent sales pitch.  Think twice before you go in business with them.  

Thank you everyone, really appreciate your input, will look into them.  

Does anyone have first-hand experiences they can share about a property manager they've personally hired?  Would love to hear about your experiences if you've used any property managers in this area.  Thanks!

Hi, 

We currently have quite a few single family homes in Spring & Tomball area (north of Houston) in Texas, and haven't been happy with the property manager we've been using.  I'm looking for a new property manager, can someone please recommend some good ones you've had good experiences with?

Thank you!

Ivan

Just want to elaborate more on the due diligence part, since that was the part I found most valuable of the course.  I made a goal at the beginning of the year to get into notes.  I looked up tons of websites, also read the "Performance Anxiety" book that someone mentioned, I read it cover-to-cover.  Got a good grasp of the concept, with very little info on the step-by-step actions I can take.  All the experts love talking about concepts and theories and home-run stories.  What most people don't provide are the actual references.  No step-by-step directions, just concepts.  I felt stuck.  I understood the concept, knew what I should look into in due diligence phase, but I didn't know HOW.  I had no path forward.  This is where Note School truly shined.  They first tell you everything you need to check in due diligence stage, then they give you the tools, the specific websites and resources, to perform each task.  How do you find out which states are judicial vs. non-judicial?  Go to this website or google it.  Which states have access to Hardest-Hit-Fund and how much money is left, and what are their conditions?  Go to this website, look in this section.  How do you get a sense of if people are living there so you can plot out your preliminary exit strategy of whether to modify the loan or do foreclosure or something else?  Order BPO and look for clues, here's how you do it.  If property is vacant, what are the codes to meet for vacant properties? Go to this website.  How do you determine the expected rent value of a property?  Here's the website.  They even tell you their service provider partners for rehabbing and property listing.  These were the actionable knowledge I was craving for, and they delivered.  I was glad I got a head start with the online research and reading through some books, but Note School is what got me to be un-stuck.  I decided to go the note-fund route, but if a good note comes my way, I now feel I have enough tools under my belt to try buying a note and continue learning by doing.  I can't comment on the mentoring packages they offer because I decided not to enroll, they're not worth it for my current goals.  But someone suggested that the 3-day course is like paying money to sit through a long sales pitch, I don't see it that way.  I saw it as a very valuable 3-day course that was well worth the $1000 I paid for.

This was just my attempt at contributing back to the forum that benefited me earlier, take it with a grain of salt.  I'm not trying to change people's minds, not trying to sell anything, people are entitled to their own opinions and there are no right or wrong.  Just wanted to share my 2 cents in hopes that someone might find it helpful.  Cheers.

The materials they teach are certainly biased, as expected.  They're selling the membership, of course they will present materials in a way that justifies the membership and the investment opportunities.  You just have to apply your own filters.  For example, in the math they show on returns of each deal, they often don't include legal consultation fee, agent fees, and a bunch of service fees.  They also don't account for sweat equity and time value of money when money is tied up.  This is to be expected, they specialize in the low price-range properties because these are the ones the hedge funds deem as not worth their time.  The note school calculation assumes your time and your sweat equity is free, and your willingness to carry the risk is free, so the numbers look great.  For example, house flippers can buy houses at a discount because they take the risk of issues with the house, and the more labor they put in themselves, the better the returns are, since their labor is "free".  The note school is teaching people how to flip bad notes.  I still think it can pay off nicely for people who are willing to bear some risks and put in sweat equity, and if I were to do this full time, I'm confident I can make it work.  Just like flipping houses is a great business for some but not for everyone, and the more work you do yourself, the better the payoff for the flipper.  The math they show are certainly biased (as several students pointed out), and while they tell people not to expect every deal to be homerns, every example they show was a homerun.  So you really need to apply your own filters to the info they show.  They also don't talk much about the risks of things going wrong.  But the concepts they teach are real and valuable.  For me, I had two goals for the course:  (1) Learn how to do due diligence on notes, and (2) Where to find notes with properties in Southern California (where I have a good network of service providers if things don't go well).  I got lots of great info on (1), none on (2) (they offer their own notes to sell but don't cover California), so I'm still having trouble buying individual notes in SoCal.  I believe in investing in education and knowledge, so while the materials are biased as expected, I learned a lot and felt it was totally worth the price.

I didn't want to get into the specifics of why I thought Ben was a prick because it's not that valuable for the readers, but since someone asked... We were scheduled to talk to Ben at the end of the 2nd day when class ends.  The class rang long, and we went to find Ben right after class ended, he was with other folks.  Another lady said he'll be done in 10 minutes and asked us to wait.  20 minutes later, we interrupted them to let them know we had to leave and to ask if we can reschedule, he gave us a bad attitude, just said he was there at 5pm at our scheduled time, indicating it was our fault that we missed our slot.  Were we wrong to assume the appointment time got pushed out when class ended late?  Perhaps.  But the attitude was totally uncalled for.  We went back the next day to meet with him at our scheduled 2nd meeting, tried to forget about bad experience from the previous day, but just felt that he had no interest in talking to us and couldn't wait to get us out of there.

I found this thread very helpful when I was trying to decide whether to attend the 3-day note school, figured I'd give back and provide some comments.  I decided to go to the 3-day course for $1000, brought my wife because you can bring a guest for free, and we enjoyed the weekend away from kids. :) 

First, the positives.  I'm a newbie to notes, and got tons of great info in the 3-day course.  To me, it was totally worth the $1k.  I feel I now know enough about the business to decide which investment option I want to choose.  If I quit my day job tomorrow, I'd seriously consider getting into this and paying for membership.  Given that I'm looking for a less time-intensive investment option for now and we are accredited investors, the Colonial note fund they offer is a better option for us.  

Now, the negatives.  First, the adviser assigned to us, Ben, was a real prick.  Unlike the friendly instructors, he had a real attitude problem towards my wife and I.  Not a good way to win over customers.  Second, the notes are tied to properties from all over the U.S., and I question the service level I'd get from the local service provider partners working on cheap houses that need a lot of work for little commission.Third, the membership tiers are now $20k (2yrs, either performing or non-performing, pick one), $30k (3yrs, both performing and non-performing), and $40k (4yrs Titanium, extra access to the team).  You'd need to be fully dedicated to this effort in order to justify this price tag.  Between my day job and all our rental properties, I don't have enough time to dedicate 10+ hours/wk on this, so it's not worth it for me.  The note fund they offer, on the other hand, seems quite good.  We are accredited investors, and the note fund they offer is quite passive and has good returns, so we might invest in that one.  We already invested in one note fund from another company and are evaluating several other ones for our next note fund investment.

This is not to say that the membership isn't worth it for everyone.  If I quite my job today, I'd be interested in spending time on notes and paying for the membership.  Sure, there are lots of info available online, but there's no substitute for on-demand mentoring from experts.  If there was, the Stanford and Harvard students would all start dropping out because everything they learn in school is already available online.  Good luck to those who jumped in, hope you make a fortune!

@Michelle et al, I'm interested in joining a group action just to fight back on their illegal and immoral action, but my account with them is too small for me to organize any group legal actions, sorry.  Leading a class action lawsuits take up a lot of time and it's time I can't afford.  I'd be happy to join in if someone else takes the lead.  Cheers.

Thank you @Ed E. and @Darryn Begun for your input.  To add to Darryn's comments, I have another data point that indicates this is not tax related.  I called up another laundry service provider when I was shopping for a new provider, they mentioned they were surprised to hear about the huge rate increase by CSC and was curious to see how the customers react, seeing this as a potential business opportunity.  They had no plans to do this increase.  The fact that CSC's competitors don't plan to raise rates indicates this is not an industry-wide tax hike.  In my conversation with CSC sales manager, he also didn't mention anything about tax hikes, just pointed to the fact that they have the right to do so and they need to raise rates to maintain customer service level.

I just sent them (via certified mail) a notice of breach of contract to them to let them know they're in breach of contract, noted that in my phone call they stated they had no intention to remedy the breach, so I gave them a date for termination when I'll unplug the machines, and when the date came, I unplugged the machine and moved them outside.  I gave them a period of time for them to pick it up, they no longer get money from my tenants.  This at least limits my loss, they can take me to court if they want.  The did come by to collect the remaining coins but haven't picked up their machines yet.