All Forum Posts by: Patrick Bushman

Hello!

I'm new here also, and currently own a property in University Park, IL. Looks to be about 15 miles from you, eyeballing it on Google Maps. It hasn't been working that well for us, and we're considering selling it or, at the least, changing property managers (we are out of state owners). Do you still have contacts in the industry? I'm looking for recommendations on both fronts - selling agent, and property managers.

Thanks, and again, welcome!

Patrick

 Forgot to include in my first message, but we also had a bad experience with the mortgage broker recommended by Mack. He made multiple mistakes on our docs, and when we called his attention to them he acted as if we were a pain in his backside. He even went so far as to "reply all," in what I can imagine was supposed to be sent only to his office team, saying that "I should just stop responding to these people." Can't imagine he meant for that to come to us, but we got the message loud and clear. Sorry our business is creating so much work for you!

I also did the tour Bryen mentioned, and had the rare opportunity to walk through the property we ultimately purchased. Most buyers don't have this opportunity prior to making an offer because there is such high demand for Mack's properties (they'll tell you), that you'll need to get an offer in within hours of the email announcing the properties for sale. Of course you have a due diligence period, but everything is rushed as much as possible to get the sale closed ASAP (and to be fair, I can't fault Mack for wanting to turn over their inventory quickly, but it does make it harder to do your legwork).

I am a Mack investor, and have had an experience similar to Christine. My wife and I purchased a single-family home through Mack almost two years ago. It took a few months for the first tenant to come in, but that was ok with us, because our first year of rent was guaranteed. However, that first tenant had to be evicted during the final month of our guarantee, 8-9 months into the lease. Fortunately for us, the first year guarantee covered the refresh costs that time. 

The second tenant has NEVER made a full rent payment. They "paid what they could" and a few months came close to the contracted rent amount, but Mack finally pulled the plug on them after another 7 months in our property. Now we are being hit with another refresh fee, re-tenanting, and legal fees from the eviction. 

As someone else pointed out previously, Mack's "system" for vetting tenants was a big selling point for us. In fact, the salesperson with whom I was dealing actually told me that they often have tenants who sign two-year leases. This has obviously not been supported by our experiences.

We purchased this property as our first investment property to test whether it really would be possible to build a substantial, reliable income from a portfolio of turnkey investments. So far, at least with Mack, the test has been a dismal failure.

To make matters worse, we also have a hard time getting anyone to follow up with us to address any of our concerns.

Call me cynical, but I can't help but wonder whether Mack preferentially places the higher-quality tenants into the properties that are still under the first-year rental guarantee. Or perhaps more of Mack's resources are directed to those "institutional" buyers.

I'm fed up with Mack and ready to move on. Not sure if we'll look for a different property manager, possibly put it up for sale as a lease-option, or just cut our losses all together and sell out now. 

Anyway, if you are an investor and looking for a new "turn-key" investment that will be a significant percentage of your portfolio, move along. Mack isn't worth the hassle.