All Forum Posts by: Tim C.

Thanks Joel.  Not too far back say from 2006-2014.  i'm basically after all the sales during that particular period on a street / subdivision level.  Can't find a online system (that doesn't require a broker license to get this data)

Hi,

I'm an overseas investor I was wondering if there was a way to get access to the MLS to look at historical sales? At the moment I get a broker to do it but I want to do a lot of checks on potential deals I'm looking at so need my own access. Thanks in advance.

Hi, I'm an overseas investor and own 5 properties in Atlanta. I was wondering if there is a way for me to get access to the MLS so I can instruct a broker to bid on a certain property?

Thanks!

Tim

Much appreciated J shot you an email.

Cheers

Thanks I've never really considers it but do u have a reputable one u can recommend?

Fair enough :)

I think with real estate it's about creative financing where you can & weighing up the risk / reward.

But I'm new to US and unfamiliar with how things are done there so will take your feedback into consideration.

Hi guys,

I'm about to close on a deal on a HUD home I purchased and I'm trying to see how I can get financing for it. I'm a foreigner with no social security number in the USA.

I've got good relationships with my banks here in my home country and I've been working with them for the past 2 months: Citigroup and HSBC. They have a vacation rental package where they can finance 70% if you treat the home as a second home.

It's a nightmare of a management situation and I'm trying to work out how finance this deal properly. This is my current plan please let me know your thoughts on this and where the potential holes are.

1) I close the property in cash. The title deed HAS to be under my personal name otherwise they will not lend (they don't lend to a LLC).
2) I get it renovated in a month and request a refinance.
3) I submit for a refinance with my banks (They said within 3 months of closing is fine although it will be the closing price valuation not after the repairs).
4) I move the property into an LLC AFTER financing is done so I have asset protection (I understand it's a quit claim deed)
4) I put the tenant in AFTER the bank has approved the loan to try and run the risk of breaching the loan's terms.

I figure if I get caught worse case they will call the loan (I dont' think it's likely in my experience once banks grant the loan and I make payment they dont care). Worse case I pay back the loan which is the same as me closing the deal in cash.

Method #2:

1) I close the deal in cash in a 3rd party LLC my dads. Deal closed at $80k USD. I put $15k renovation cost in and "flip" it to my personal name for a semi inflated but reasonable price say $105k so it passes bank checks.
2) The advantage of this is I basically get my repairs financed too I get 70% of $105k instead of 70% of $80k as in the first method.

The downside of this approach is the 3rd party LLC has to pay capital gains tax but I"ll have to pay it eventually when I sell the place anyway.

* The goal of this really is to try to think of creative ways to leverage my capital so I can buy more and not just pay cash for properties (highly inefficient).

Would welcome any comments on this I've been up all night talking to US banks try to get my financing sorted!

Guys thanks heaps for all your detailed responses.

Really appreciate it, I love the returns on the USA market and am more enthusiastic than ever!

Wish I found this forum earlier so much awesome info out there and lots of assumptions I made offshore I now know are incorrect e.g. I was modelling 30% of expenses I didn't even hear about the 50% rule until I got onto this forum.

Most guys I deal with model 20% so I thought I was being conservative plugging in 30%!

Tim Breems thanks for posting the financial statements. It's interesting to see they are operating at a loss while they are "waiting" for the property to stabilize.

I always find it amazing insto guys make money charging fees they are actually worse at investing if you look at the actual ROI than anyone in this forum. But they do it in scale with other peoples money and charge fees I guess it's a different model and (it's investors lose out) anyway let's not go there.

I've found it's actually quite easy to reverse engineer where the funds are buying in case anyone is interested I spent a bit of time researching Atlanta as I own there. If you watch news articles (setup a news alert using google alerts) relating to hedge funds / private equity you can quickly Blackstone etc. A quite read of the news articles you will usually find they own a management company they bought out right to manage their property rentals.

You then google their management company, look at their rental listings. Then search the address in county records and you'll find the LLC they bought in. Most of the time they bought over 100 properties in that LLC so reverse look up a list of their LLC in county records and hey pronto you have a list of their properties.

I found one hedge fund is buying heavily in Gwinette county in Atlanta does match on the ground data?

One other point I noticed that just from the above posted fund they are having probs renting in las vegas and phoenix comparively the markets which have run up the most. THis also matches news saying rents are dropping in vegas and phoenix.

I'm kind of worrying with Atlanta being the next market where hedge funds rushed in do you think there can be backward movement in rent due to increase in supply for rental properties?

I've been working in insto finance for a few years spent a few hours having a dig around for any public information instituation buying of SFR as I'm personally invested in the Atlanta market just recently.

Came across multiple reports this one I found was interesting: http://investors.silverbayrealtytrustcorp.com/Cache/1500047694.PDF?Y=&O=PDF&D=&FID=1500047694&T=&IID=4335231

Silver Bay Realty is a the first fund who have public listed (there's been an IPO listing for American Residential Homes just recently so they are looking to cash out as well). They are really trying to list SFR as a new asset class that is publicly tradable.

Some interesting points in the report.

- Phoenix and Vegas seem to be the markets where they are struggling to rent comparatively.
- The budget 15% for renovations
- I remember reading somewhere they estimate 40% in expenses (vs the 50% rule inthis forum)
- Their average age of properties 14 years.

I know a lot of people on this forum says that property as run up really fast really quickly. It has. But looking at the data from a few hours analysis it looks like there is still a lot of capital to be deployed. I know from experience it takes time to raise capital, execute etc. and there are a lot of players right now I don't think they will slow down buying they will just lower their criterian instead of 10% net they will go down to 5% net etc. They will continue buying even if it doesn't make financial sense as long as they can IPO it off and there is a demand for their fund.

One thing to note that hedge funds / insto capital still account for a small % of the entire market so academically their buying shouldn't effect the prices beyond a sentiment point of view. I would be interested in how this compares with people on the ground and bidding on REOs.