All Forum Posts by: Patrick Desjardins

Hey Chris, glad you stuck with it and progressed nicely. I started a little before you and did pretty well until notes started becoming more expensive and difficult to find, and then I switched to other strategies. But note investing definitely works, if anyone is looking to get into it.

My best deal was purchased for $13k and generated about $170k. HOWEVER it was a very long saga that took about 7 years to resolve.

Be careful with REITs. On the surface a lot of them have attractive dividends, but they are particularly vulnerable right now, especially if they have exposure to commercial real estate. This is often called a dividend trap.

You can still find good deals. One of the ones I invest in gives out 15% dividend (I bought it at 3, down from 6 pre corona). But over the past few years the dividend has gone from .21 to .18, .14, 08 and it's now 0.055 per share.

REITs aren't my favorite. I get much better, consistent results selling options. Especially in the current environment where new traders on Robinhood are buying options willy-nilly, it's like taking candy from kids.

Note investing is very niche still. There is very little quality, in depth information. A lot of the books and conferences are mostly "what is a note and why invest in notes" level info.

I hate to say it but the best ways to get started are:

- Get coaching / mentoring from someone

- Do a JV and reverse engineer what the person is doing

- Buy performing notes and start learning with something easy

- Buy a cheaper NPN and learn by doing

If you have a specific question myself and several others here can probably answer it.

Try to strike a balance between both. To answer your question, as others pointed out, cash flow is considered safer because even though you might not be able to keep up with repairs etc, at the minimum you'll be able to pay the mortgage and benefit from that long term loan paydown.

HOWEVER, it's undeniable that people who caught the wave after the previous recession, in strong appreciation markets, did way better than people focusing solely on cash flow. I have some in Memphis and they gained a little value, but nowhere near what I would have made in Florida, California etc.

So my advice would be either balance your portfolio in 2 markets, one with strong cash flow and the other with more appreciation, or go for one of the markets that have a little of both. Just my thoughts, maybe others disagree.

One green day and they're talking about reopening everything. Brace yourself..

Yessir, and it does amount to a lot. 6k a pop. But as was said, there has been so much litigation and so many court proceedings that it doesn't even make me break even. Plus the opportunity cost of losing 3-4 months each time.

I don't know why I made this post really. Part venting, part warning that it's not always sunshine and rainbows. I know that you know that already but some people might not realize how gruesome it can be. There were many months where this stupid note was costing me 1-2k a month in legal fees (and due to the circumstances yes, we had to go forward) and the old cliché about "you only need to set aside 3k for legal" would have sent me straight to bankruptcy.

Winning bidders didn't perform, attorney didn't publish in the newspaper, bankruptcy, another bidder not perform. Pretty absurd.

One of our notes in Florida just went up for auction for a 5th time and once again it needs to be rescheduled.

This has to be some kind of record?

Every time this happens, we have to see the judge and waste another 4 months. So the foreclosure has been going on for nearly 6 years.

Guys remember note investing is easy until it's not.

10 days isn't long enough for any meaningful investment. Just get the $700 and enjoy the new property.

Ditto. It used to be easy and there were more good notes than there were buyers. Notes were a low hanging fruit.

Now it's difficult finding notes at a comfortable price, especially if you can't buy multi million portfolios.This is by far one of the least transparent industries.