All Forum Posts by: Marjo Naci

@Marjo Naci

I think you have a good plan. Focus on the marketing and become as best as you can at it. You have all your life in front of you.

Every investor is different but, ultimately, we might all look at opportunities in a similar way. When I invest in a country/location, I want to have a minimum return to compensate me for the amount of risk I'm taking and I want to have access to the best resources on the ground. And, even if that's the case the risk-adjusted return would have to be better or at least similar to what I can get elsewhere. When the risk is too high, I just won't invest. It doesn't matter what the return is and who is involved because the return of capital is more important than the return on capital. 

Also, make sure you protect yourself and your reputation properly. The issue for anybody marketing other people's projects is that you're dependent on them performing. So let's say you find investors and they invest and lose money because your partner didn't perform. You brought the investors so you'll be co-responsible for the loss of money, even if you're not "directly" responsible. You could avoid that by being a pure intermediary and putting people in contact with him and they should judge the opportunity by themselves. But If you do that, you'd just make people aware of the opportunity. You can't promote. You'd have to leave that job to him. You don't want to start your career being responsible for investor losses, as investors will likely find out.

@Marjo Naci

I'm very impressed! I wrote the long reply below and, as I was going to hit the "Post Reply" button, I decided to check something in your profile and I realized you're 15 years old! Kudos to you for starting so early and posting in the BP forums! Now I'm not sure which investor should give money to a 15-year old in an unproven country but that shouldn't discourage you. Lean on your partner, find a mentor, just find a way. You can still do it but you need to find the right people. I'm sure you have a bright future ahead of you.

Let me first answer your three questions and then dive deeper on my answer to the third one: 1) Yes 2) Risk adjusted return too low and country risk and 3) The risk adjusted return has to be high enough. If it's about investing in somebody else's project, trust is the most important.

When you say "our country is in the top of the airbnb reservation list with 3 cities, be careful with words like this. Albania doesn't even have 3 million inhabitants and only has a burgeoning industry so I can't see how that would be possible.

I thought it might be helpful that I share my perspective on marketing an international country/location with you. I invest internationally with investors and I've never marketed what I do. All those who have invested with me have come to me. While I have control over the deals I do, I don't have control over what happens in a country/location. So I always tell my investors this: "It's not up to me to sell you on the merits of investing in a given country/location to influence you to invest in my deals. However, if you have decided that you want to invest in country/location X, my job is to offer you the best possible investment opportunity or create it if it doesn't exist". Of course, I'll give my opinion on the country/location if asked and it's going to be positive or I wouldn't invest there. But I don't like people who promote a destination just because they happen to have deals they want to market them, which is what too many promoters do.

This leads me to talk about Albania. In my reply to your question 2, I mentioned country risk. Some people who have never invested internationally sometimes tend to think that it's about investing in or outside the US, as if the rest of the world was a homogenous country. It's not because some people invest in Mexico that they'll invest in Albania for example. So make sure you ask the right questions to get the answers you want.

I have looked at Albania this year and I think that, if the local government does the right things, the country would potentially have a bright long-term touristic future. It's a big if and, personally, I'll have to see it before I believe it. Even though I'm already an international investor, I wouldn't invest today as it's way too early, risky and speculative to my taste and there are much better places to invest internationally in my opinion. I'm not looking to be a hero. I want the country to prove itself before I'll trust it with my money and the bar is even higher for other people's money.

Yet, I believe that you can find people to invest in Albania. Investors who have a longer time horizon, a higher appetite for risk and are ready to take a gamble. Your job would be to find those. Who are they? Where do they hangout (likely not on BiggerPockets but there might be some, who knows)? Once you have found them, you could be totally upfront in your marketing communication: no need to sugarcoat the current situation and tell investors this is a bet on the future so they shouldn't invest money you can't but they might want to allocate part of their speculative bucket.

Hope this is helpful.

@Marjo Naci

Out of country investing is something that I would be very interested in pursuing and I have looked into real estate while I had been traveling already. It is a goal of mine for the future but there are several concerns that I have about it. Right now my background is that I have properties in 2 cities within Louisiana that are 2 hours apart from one another. We are currently practicing long distance management in the second city in order to get more comfortable with the systems required to manage long distance real estate. However, if there is an emergency, we do have the safety blanket of being able to drive to the other city to deal with a matter since its only a 2 hour drive. To answer yours questions:

Would you be against investing out-of-country if the numbers made sense

Yes

What will hold you back from not investing?

From personal experience, understanding the nuances of each region is important for having a successful real estate property. Even differences in tenant-landlord eviction and interactions have some differences in the two cities we own in the state of Louisiana. The greater the distance, the more these differences are likely to come up. Once international investing comes up; there is a lot more to consider. The system in place for purchasing, financing, and managing a property in another country are likely different than what I am accustomed to within the US. While this wouldn't scare me away from buying international property, it would be a knowledge base I would need to be sure to acquire before I am comfortable proceeding in a venture like that. In order to be comfortable with getting a property in a different region, I would also need to find a property manager or boots on the ground team that I am comfortable with and I believe are able to do the job adequately. Without a good property manager, a property is more likely to turn into a money sink than successful investment. Finding a quality property manager in a region I do not live is another major concern I would have. 

@Marjo Naci

someone like me is not a candidate for one basic reason.  im not looking for passive investing.  and i have to have my own people in charge of the projects not someone who we do not know. 

@Marjo Naci

These are great questions. But what I would do is identify realtors that work with these types of buyers.  This may not be as difficult as you think and in the end will make things a lot easier for you.

I would make some random calls to higher end real estate companies and connect with their brokers or office managers.  Let them know what you have and if they know any realtors that would have buyers looking for these types of project.

I would also connect with local realtors in your own town and ask the same questions.  to see if they have US buyers.

this is how I would approach the situation.