All Forum Posts by: JC Wu

@Tom Ott@Engelo Rumora@Marco Santarelli@Account Closed Thank you guys so much for taking the previous time out of your busy schedule to enlighten me and other newbie investors who seek valuable info from this thread. It's super interesting to learn how different your investment philosophies and client criteria can be as reputable operators that serve out-of-state investors. 

@Jason Pabon According to X's story, the property was listed at 90K, which is obviously over 60K. The seller was open to financing before knowing the appraised value was 30K lower than the Roofstock valuation & list price. 

I appreciate you offer to share your perspectives as a Roofstock buyer, but you have conflict of interest since you work for Roofstock. It's like the huge fraction of Roofstock's five star Google reviews are written by your business partners/vendors/certified property managers, then you tout on the homepage your website "Our customers love us. Customers give us 4.9 out of 5 stars on Google Reviews."

Roofstock does seem to be a great place to work. I hope you enjoy your new job, though I'm afraid being the new PR guy on BP won't be easy given your company's conduct. Take care and good luck. 

@Account Closed

WATCH OUT FOR CASH ONLY PROPERTIES ON ROOFSTOCK!!!

So people have been spilling their Roofstock stories to me in PM all the time, mostly the same old stuff I already know about, but this recent one particularly caught my attention. I can easily see how a large number of newbie out-of-state investors fall into a trap like this. 

Short version: This Roofstock investor (let's call her/him X) was interested in a property that gave the buyer the options of financing or cash. X ordered two appraisals, both revealed the property was only worth 2/3 of Roofstock's valuation and list price. By the way, Zestimate came close to Roofstock's valuation and list price. X backed out of the deal. The next day, Roofstock relisted the property on its site at the original list price, this time as cash only so potential buyers can't order their own appraisals to learn the true value of the property. 

Here are screenshots of the PM conversations if you want to read the long version:

I seriously doubt a tactic like this is Roofstock specific. 

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Under this line is the spectator zone for those who might be especially interested in the answers. Here's your virtual popcorn. You're welcome. 

@Santosh K.@Tim B.@Brian Ploszay@Tony Kim@Ian Ippolito@Amit Jadhav@William Keasling@Cody DeLong@Account Closed 

Focking hell! I tried another search engine: DuckDuckGo. Sure enough, this thread popped up as the 3rd search result on the first page.

Duck duck Go!

Shame on Google, fishy as hell. I can't believe we live under such a tyranny of internet censorship. 

Originally posted by @Duncan Plexico:

Howdy JC.  When searching what you inquired about, this site is at the top...

 That's what I'm talking about. The title of this thread is "Roofstock review. NEWBIES BEWARE!!" with 147 posts, not "My first (bad) investment experience with Roofstock" with 13 posts. 

I suspect Roofstock got Google to somehow remove this thread from Google search results, but the content of this thread shouldn't be the type of info that Google removes upon request (I'm 99.9% sure about that), which is why I'm baffled. 

I JUST NOTICED SOMETHING EXTREMELY BIZARRE:

When "Roofstock negative review" or "Roofstock bad review" is searched on Google, this thread used to be THE top/first search result on the first page. And when "Roofstock review" is searched, this thread used to be the first result after those Google ads. I don't save password for this site, so I usually just type in those keywords on Google to access this thread. Now this thread just doesn't pop up on Google no matter how I search it, even if by searching with the full title. Is it just me? Anybody else? 

@Mindy Jensen Does BiggerPockets accept money from companies in exchange for removing a thread from your site or at least downgrading the ranking of a thread in the search results? I'm asking purely out of curiosity, not implying anything. If not, how does BP rank its search results? It doesn't seem to be based on popularity (number of replies). 

@Jon Q. How did you find this thread today? 

You wrote that you've been investing in markets nationwide for over 20 years, and active investors tend to be more successful than passive investors. So have you been investing actively in out-of-state markets? Many out-of-state investors wish to be more hands-on and get more involved but the distance makes it unrealistic. 

How do the demographics, population forecasts, and job growth forecasts in Vallejo and Stockton vary considerably from Oakland, Richmond and Sacramento? 

@Amit M. Thank you SO much for all this information and insights, it's really helpful and much appreciated. I feel like I can listen to you talk all day.

Speaking of being patient, a double whammy of recession and a major earthquake (magnitude > 8.0) can potentially drive SF home prices down considerably for the short term. They’re both overdue and can appear with startling suddenness. I’m just daydreaming out loud.

@James Wise Read the entire thread before you jump to conclusions on the entire thread. You wouldn’t have asked the last question in the first place if you even read through the top half of the first page. This thread has more to do with Roofstock the company than my experience with this single one FL property.

@David Song I have a financial advisor from Merrill Lynch, who's on the Forbe's America's best wealth advisors list. Her team has been doing an excellent job at managing and growing my portfolio consists of core investments ( stocks & bonds) and satellite investments like gold mines, etc. It's completely passive; the annual return has been around 15% for the past few years. But taking the powerful compound interest effect (which btw doesn't come with REI) into account, the annual returns are actually much higher. She basically told me the same thing you said about the risk of REI investing being way too high for newbies to justify the reward and time spent. When I vented about this bad experience, she gave me this much anticipated "I told you so" smug smile that made me want to both hug her and slap her.

Kudos to you for jumping on the train with perfect timing before it sped up again. I might get my brain knocked out if I were to make a jump now.

@Amit M. Damn. Five bullet points AND a graph. What a generous treat!

You think Bay Area property value still has a large upside growth potential? The population growth seems to be slowing down and it’s already the most expensive market in the nation.

@Chris Clothier I gotta say, you’re really good at what you do. Way better than that Roofstock PR guy who left Roofstock recently. @Jason G. has made more contributions than him on BP. Roofstock should at least send Jason a holiday gift basket, like a few bottles of wine + dried fruits&nuts tray.

Your insider’s knowledge of the TK industry is super intriguing. I appreciate you taking the time to write that long post.

It’s shocking to learn about how much these shady so-called “turnkey” companies pay promotional companies to lure in investors.

I didn’t know Memphis Invest is not just the largest company in Memphis, but in the Turnkey industry as a whole. That’s fascinating and congratulations. The Memphis market is THAT big? Does your company only operate in Memphis or plan to expand to other markets? I know when Roofstock first entered the Memphis market, their properties flew off the shelf/site like Costco rotisserie chickens. However, after a while, the heat cooled off.

I presumed folks from Texas, Florida and Illinois invest local - those are popular out of state markets to CA and NY investors.

@Bert Calero How did you come up with that 37007.00 number? This is the property, 258 days on market, lol:

@James Wise I bought it for 95K, add another 2 - 3K in closing cost. Yes, the wholesaler bought it from me for 107K and sold it to the end buyers for 117K, so the end buyers paid 117K + 3K in closing costs. Poor fockers won't be a return client of the wholesaler that's for sure. 

Happy Thanksgiving guys! 

@Amit M.Lol!! You can always come up with those astute 3-word summaries? "Less is more" from your profile, I like it. Impressive investment strategy you've been pulling off! 

@Account Closed"Barriers to entry", that's the term. After reading your posts, it seems that what I need is a mentor. Those occasional lunch/coffee sessions probably won't be enough unless some experienced investor is willing to be harassed by me every single week. The learning curve definitely looks steep and the viable local strategies come with high barriers to entry. 

The worst investment decision I've made to date actually has nothing to do with REI. I was gonna invest 1M in bitcoins when the price was $220/piece a few years back. An "investment advisor" from a Bank of America branch strongly advised against it with a passion, which successfully deterred me at the last moment. Thinking back, if he was so good at making investment decisions, he wouldn't be working at a cubicle relying on his 6 figure salary to make a living. I only have myself to blame as it was my ultimate decision to take his advice. I feel that timing matters more than strategy when it comes to investment; but when I miss the timing, I can only play with tweaking strategies which is easier said than done. :(

@Chris Clothier Aren't you the biggest TK provider in Memphis? How do you feel about @David Song thinking that TK promoters on BP try to tell ppl that OOS TK is easier and better than local investing is BS?

@David Song I knew there's a catch. The niche you've found is suitable for experts like yourself but too risky for new investors starting out. 

It takes multidisciplinary RE knowledge + big balls to put an accurate estimate on the cost of renovating properties that come with major structural and foundation issues and pull the trigger. One single overlooked item means going over the budget and turns a potentially good investment into a money pit. 

Any suggestions for rookie investors on how to get into those niches without being fully exposed to the high risks?

@Lane Kawaoka Are there even any class D areas in those super expensive primary markets? The class D areas in the San Francisco Bay Area seem to be dwindling rapidly. The properties in the once known "murder capital" of the country, East Palo Alto, are worth millions now. Properties in those bad pockets in Oakland aren't cheap at all. 

@Amit M. You're also an investor from San Francisco? Have you been investing locally with success? What's your niche?