I bought a home from Morris Invest January 2018 in Indianapolis. I did zero due diligence. I jumped in hook, line, and sinker. No appraisal, no nothing. I completely and foolishly trusted Clayton. Paid $47.5K. While I can't know what Morris' motivations are, or what's in his heart, what I can do is recount what happened. February 2018 I received an email from Linzi del Conte stating that rehab was in progress. Specifically, demonstration is complete and electrical and plumbing have started. In the email she said that they would send photos once the work was completed. I was so excited to hear that news. In April I emailed her to see how it was going. I was looking forward to receiving those rent checks so I could use them to pay down the personal loans I had taken out. She responded that as soon as she received pictures, she would send them. I emailed again later that month. She responded that she had inquired with the rehab team and would let me know when she had a response. I emailed again in May, asking for an estimated date of rehab completion. She responded that they shoot for rehab completion in 90 days. I emailed again later in May, and she cc'd "Gina" from Blue Sky, asking her to let me know how the house was coming along. Gina never responded, to my knowledge. I emailed again in June. She cc'd Gina again and said Gina could get "the latest update from the field". No response from Gina. I emailed again later in June, and she said Gina no longer works there but that Pam could help me. Pam said she didn't know if any work was done on the house, and as far as she could tell no work was done. The whole time, obviously, absolutely no work had been done on the house.
At no point did anyone from Morris Invest offer to work with the state of Indiana to recoup the funds, as Clayton said in one of his responses on the BBB website. No one from Morris Invest said anything, except to eventually tell me that they also lost money working with Oceanpointe. Honestly, I didn't even know what Oceanpointe was until I read these forums. Morris Invest did not present a way forward. Morris Invest did not explain what had happened. They were evasive, slippery, and shifty.
The obvious question is why would I invest the money in the first place. For those of you out there who are hurting with this, let me offer the following. I have a very successful career in the military and in my line of work I've seen just about everything, including people taken in by financial scams. Yet, I was duped. Here's my best explanation. At the time, the logic as presented by Clayton was solid. You buy a house and rent it out. You deal with the vacancies and the repairs, but you get the rent to mitigate any losses. I recall in one of the videos that Clayton ridiculed people who questioned real estate deals. He asked that people overcome their hesitation and "get out there, become a real estate investor." He also downplayed the benefits of a 401k or IRA, implying that you could just buy a few houses and be set for life. Paraphrasing, he said that if you retire in your 60's or 70's you're pretty much too old to enjoy it. I was taken in by his arguments that real estate could lead to financial freedom. It never occurred to me that in America the money could be taken and the rehab just never done. Because that would be criminal, right? And criminals are prosecuted, right? Yes, it was stupid, and there are probably a couple hundred of us who were taken in, in pretty much the same way. As I watched Clayton's videos, I was being groomed to remove any doubts in the back of the mind and to take the risk, which wasn't really presented as a risk. Ultimately, that's on me. I've seen some comments on these threads about people needing to take responsibility. We do. We take responsibility every time we make those monthly loan payments. We take responsibility as we live below our means to be able to make those payments, even as we watch Clayton and his family take summer vacations to Europe and post the pictures on facebook. The responsibility is ultimately on us, whether we take it or not. Telling us to take responsibility is like telling the Pope to become a Catholic.
The loss for me was huge. Not only the purchase price, but the insurance payments and the loan interest on top of that. Not to mention the opportunity cost for $47K? We're talking about a lot of money. Money that could have gone to charity, to education, to retirement, to anything other than Clayton's pocket. I've reached out to several agents and wholesalers, and I'll be lucky to get a couple thousand for that house.
A couple of positive comments to close with. This was a harsh lesson, but a valuable one. If anyone is reading this, please ensure you do due diligence before making any kind of a deal. Avoid Morris like the plague, at all costs. As Jay Hinrichs has explained, the business model just doesn't work. The only thing that I can't really get over is that he's still out there luring in "investors" [suckers] exactly as he did with me. I am one of the lucky ones. Some people took loans on their 401k and completely emptied their retirement savings. I had briefly considered buying more than one house from Clayton. That would have almost completely wiped me out. Many I presume will need decades to recover financially after having spent a lifetime of work saving money. It's just sick. This experience may well have prevented me from being taken in by a larger scam down the road. Finally, it's cliche and small comfort to those who lost a lot of money, but at the end of the day money doesn't lead to happiness and things happen for a reason.
