All Forum Posts by: Kalen Jordan

Thanks for the input everyone.  I guess I really need to try and focus on getting to know a property manager and an agent I can work with and trust.  If there's anyone out there looking for another California investor to work with.. please send me a message.  I'm very motivated to get my first investment property under my belt.

 Well I could take up your next couple of years if I chose to talk about the entire subject. Is there a specific question or set of questions you have?

James,

I have several postings about Smartland in forum. I have purchased several homes from them since 2015. The homes are renovated well. There have been no maintenance costs. They screen tenants very well. There has been no turnover, late rent or any other tenant issues. I plan to continue investing with them. If you have specific things that you would like to discuss, please feel free to directly message me.

Tim

There are a lot of forums where people list out credible apartment syndicators. But you still want to know how to qualify a syndicator. Trust, but verify. There are also a lot of forums and blog posts with questions to ask a syndicator before investing in their deal.

@Bree Wijnaar, I have a significant amount of my portfolio in syndications and am happy to share with you the relevant ones that have done well for me. But it may or may not be useful, depending on how similar or different your risk tolerance is. I am a conservative investor, so someone who is aggressive will have a completely different opinion on things. Where do you fall on the spectrum?

Also, I would not actually recommend starting with picking syndication sponsors, because you can end up with an unbalanced portfolio and accidentally take on more risk than you want or are expecting. If you haven’t done so already, I would recommend taking a step back and determining first how much of your investment portfolio do you want to put in real estate. Then figure out what you want to allocate to the different strategies (core, core plus, value added, opportunistic), capital stack types (equity, debt), asset type (Multi family, retail, office, self storage, hotel, etc). Then look for the top 2 to 3 sponsors in that area to investigate further.

@Peter S. turnkey properties have their place for investors who want to stay in control of their investment. Folks who have make the decision that single family homes are the best option for their specific scenario and they understand that there are potential downsides to purchasing at a distance are perfect for TK. 

However, my beef with turnkey properties is that they are sold as a "passive" way to invest in real estate. Every person I know who has bought a turnkey property spends a massive amount of time (in proportion to being passive) dealing with problems. Common issues are: rehabs, evictions, management issues, city issues, etc...

The reason you're hearing so much about syndications lately is since private equity offerings were opened up to basically everyone a few years ago, people are finding out that there truly is a passive way to invest. There are obvious downsides to that as well, but for investors looking for true passivity, it can't be beat. From the turnkey offerings I have seen, the returns on my deals are close if not the same. Difference being, much more tax advantaged and total passivity.