All Forum Posts by: Pierre Clark

Scott, James, Brandon, Aaron and Victoria, thanks to all of you for the kind welcoming words. As I said, I  have been a "lurking" member of Bigger Pockets for a long time, and have even posted a few times, but decided to formally introduce myself to the community in the hopes of sharing and gaining some knowledge and insights. You can never learn enought in this business, and I've had some good experiences and hope to share those and learn from the experiences of others. As a development consultant, we have to look at deals creatively and innovatively and put together all kinds of resources to get deals done. And I always want to learn about how others are doing deals because it adds to the knowledge base I have. So happy to dialogue and share what I know at any time. 

Thanks so much for the welcome, James.  I like sharing whatever I can and look forward to dialoguing with you and the group. I like your website and am working on one which should be up shortly. 

Thanks, Peter. Looking forward to dialoguing with you and the other members of BP. 

I'm Pierre and I'm a development consultant and real estate investor. I've been involved in real estate investing for about a decade but thinking about being involved for three decades (telling my age). Like many others, I thought about getting involved with real estate for a long time before actually buying something, and it wasn't until I became fairly established as a development consultant that I actually started buying and investing. I've run a housing resource center so I know the purchaser side of real estate and I am a development consultant so all day long I work on the deal side, putting deals together. Most of the people we work with have limited funds so creativity and strategy and innovation are keys. I work with all kinds of people who are interested in real estate, real estate buyers and large project developers, where we bring deals together and add value.

I like talking deals and talking about deals, and look forward to sharing ideas and strategies in the group.

As a matter of fact, since one focus of the program is to get investors to purchase so-called "bad" assets (basically REOs) from the banks, there are many investor consortiums around the country (including ones led by former executives of the Resolution Trust Corporation) that are organizing now to buy these REOs in bulk. As for the affordable housing situation, for years prices were inflated by bad appraisals and those inflationary prices made it difficult to find affordable housing. The drop in prices is making homes more affordable and there are billions of dollars in the housing plan to support the purchase of affordable housing by low-mod income homebuyers at prices they can pay. From my view, the purpose of the program is to reinvigorate lending, stabilize housing prices, and create incentives for lenders to lend to people who want to buy homes, and for investors who see an opportunity to purchase properties as lease options, rentals, etc. It injects billions of dollars into the financial pipeline and that has to be good for everyone in this economy.

Here are a few links that can, I think, shed some light on this discussion:

Obama Foreclosure Plan Gets Generally Positive Reviews

Marketwatch: Lawmakers and bankers support Obama loan plan

Here's a link to a summary of the plan being proposed:

Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan

I was on a conference call this morning with members of the Administration from the Treasury Department and HUD and the general reaction was positive, although most of the people on the call were part of the affordable housing and foreclosure intervention communities around the country.

This is an investor's site and I am an investor too although I also work at developing affordable housing. I think Obama's intent is to restore confidence and create incentives among banks to lend money for homeownership and try to stop the freefall in housing values by stabilizing communities through incentivizing refinancing at lower rates of interest and lower monthly payments. From an investor standpoint, nothing Obama does stops anyone from buying REOs or using any other creative financing mechanisms and as someone on this thread pointed out, the increase in the number of investor loans from 4 to 10 is significant for the property investor community.

Yes it would be an outside management company. 5% of calculated rents would be about $3500 a month. In the experience of others, is this a standard reasonable rate?

First of all, this is a great website and forum. I'm just now posting after being a member for some time. I have learned a great deal so far from the various posts. They provide a lot of immediately useful info. I am hoping someone out there can provide some info on a commercial project I am working on.

I have the opportunity to purchase three multi-unit buildings: a 10-unit, a 33-unit and a 62-unit with 6 commercial spaces (what we call a mixed use building). My calculations on the cash flow say more than $70,000 a month on the apartment units (plus the rental of the commercial spaces) on a total investment of $2.95 million ($390K, $560K, and $2MM) which I can probably negotiate. I have a management company that can manage the properties. I have set up an LLC which could be the purchaser ( I am the sole member).

My questions: how much should I offer as a downpayment or earnest money? I have a banker I am talking with but would a commercial mortgage lender or private money person be better? What percentage should I pay the management company for managing the building if I decide to hire a management company?

I know these are specific questions but any answers and insights would be appreciated.

Here is the guy who is the inspiration for Donald Trump and many other real estate investors (including me) in an article from Fortune Magazine:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/10/31/8359143/index.htm

Here are ten books that have helped me a lot - the first one on the list I bought in 1984 and it took nearly 20 years before I put its concepts into action but it for me is still one of the best, and here are the other 9 as well:

Nothing Down - Robert Allen
Creating Wealth - Robert Allen
Multiple Streams Of Income - Robert Allen
Wealth Without Risk - Charles Givens
Financial Self-Defense - Charles Givens
The Millionaire Next Door - Stanley and Danko
The Millionaire Mind - Stanley and Danko
Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey
Why Should White Guys Have All The Fun? - Story of Billionaire Reg Lewis
Think And Grow Rich - Think And Grow Rich: A Black Choice - Hill and Kimbro

Because so many on this thread have recommended Robert Kiyosaki I am going to purchase and read one or two of his books. I have also glanced at Russ Whitney's book and it looks good as well.

All the above books of course are available at Amazon.com