All Forum Posts by: Mark S.

@Orlando Osuna 

Freedom Real Estate Group - YouTube

If you have any doubts, just watch these two clowns and you'll RUN away.  What a joke.

@Robert Yapp, I’ve worked with MSHB.  PM if you’d like details.  Short answer is I would generally recommend MSHB.  

@Sachin Amin, I visited them several years ago.  Although the gentleman we met with at that time for property tours was extremely nice (he is no longer there, by choice according to what I was told, due at least in part to how the company was operating their business), we were not impressed with this group’s operations.  We met at their office, took a tour with him, then went back to their office to chat.  The office personnel were extremely nice, but I was not at all impressed with one of the owners who appeared to be aware we were there taking a tour and potentially becoming new clients, but he couldn’t take 30 seconds to pop his head in the conference room and say hello.  The properties we toured were very old and in different stages of rehab, but I wasn’t particularly impressed by the rehab work, the contractors smoking indoors, or some of the uneven floors that they just decided to throw carpet over, hoping no one would notice.  I gave them my criteria and never heard a word or received an email from them since.  I did hear them a while later on Keith’s GRE podcast and reached out to their new contact about property that was supposedly available right away (probably thinking/hoping they changed their ways and might actually somehow have some “good” properties available) only for the new contact to tell me they don’t have any available.  Maybe I’m a PITA, who knows, but again not impressed with them.  I do remember that they pay hefty referral fees for referring other investors (supposedly), and I would guess that’s a big part of why he is recommending them.  As much as I love Keith (met him in person twice on investor trips), I think he has made a change to trying to monetize everything and collect referral fees wherever possible.  The podcast used to have great, original content.  Now, it seems to have gone downhill and the relatively new YouTube channel is just another way to say the same things and monetize.  Nothing wrong with making money, but when you associate with groups where investors repeatedly have bad experiences (Freedom, Maverick, Real Estate Cowboys/Larson, etc.), something just isn’t right.  I understand there are outlier experiences, and while on the surface yours appears to be one of them, it may not be as uncommon as you think.  With all that said, there are also guests on the show that seem to have good investor experiences (Mid South Home Buyers, AgroNosotros, etc.).  Moral of the story to all of us is that we always need to do our own due diligence and be cognizant of who is on the other side of the transaction and their possible motives - usually $.

@Nick Brimmerq, I don’t think these two necessarily do weekly budgeting, but Set for Life by Scott Trench  is a great foundational outline.  I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi is a little more granular and practical. I think both books would definitely add value, especially when getting started.  

Crestcore in Memphis, TN does a great couple episode podcast series evaluating and describing different zipcodes in Memphis.  Definitely worth a listen (and recommend taking notes).  

@Kerry Baird, yes, I did. 3.75% fixed for 30-years at 70% LTV. Pulled 100%+ of my cash out.

They all sound pretty bad to me.  I work with two PMs in Memphis and both contracts are better than these from what I remember.

One is a turnkey outfit and the other has gone through change of ownership, so I believe some of their terms have changed but I’m “grandfathered” in to the “old” contract.  

Interesting model.  Just watched the 17 minute video which appears to have been recorded in 2020 (website updated to reflect 2021).  Essentially a lease option program where you guys get about 23% of non-refundable tenant-resident fee.  Investor buys home with pre-determined sale price to tenant-resident (ultimate home owner) with targeted purchase of 6 months to 3 years.  Front end lease option money, after 23% fee, goes to investor.  Rent (which is seemingly slightly higher than market due to deal type) goes to investor (who holds the mortgage) and creates some monthly cash flow.  Then within a super short time frame, investor must sell the home at contractually agreed upon price to tenant-resident who then becomes homeowner.  Since lease option fee appears to be somewhat close to the buy/sell spread, the investor doesn’t really make much on the back end (they effectively get their money back and keep the upfront lease option fee).  What am I missing?

A few questions come to mind:

1. 1.) When you say you help facilitate this process, is there a separate fee for that (like, acting as buyer’s agent for a %)?
2. 2.) You say no PM needed due to tenant type and how much care they generally have for “their” property,  but if something goes wrong, who deals with tenant - you guys or investor?
3. 3.) Who pays closing costs on these deals?  It seems like those would add up quickly if the investor is only owning the home for 6 months to 3 years.  

I know you’re probably going to encourage me to book a call, however, I am traveling this week and I also think these would be common questions that others may have, so posting responses here would probably benefit everyone.

@Amy Raye Rogers, I agree with a lot of what @Joe Splitrock said above except I would look at Southwest instead.  Southwest now flies to Hawaii as well. Based on what you said, you should easily be able to earn the Southwest Companion Pass.  There was an excellent podcast on almost exactly this yesterday on ChooseFI.  They’ve done their own podcasts on this as well, but this time they had a guest.  She was fantastic and pretty much recommends what I would.  I went to her website afterwards and saw she charges people like $1,300 for what seems to be much of the content she discussed on the episode.  If people actually pay this, perhaps I found a new side hustle.  lol.  

If you have questions or would like to discuss, feel free to PM me.  We haven’t paid for a flight in probably 3+ years since we started doing this.  No upsell here.  Although, if you wanted to use my referral link (which is free) to sign up for the card which would kick me back a few points (at no reduction of your bonus points earned), I would happily agree.  ;-)

Either way, sounds like you have a lot of rewards and free travel coming your way.  Cheers. 

@Lane Kawaoka, we can talk about scarcity vs abundant mindset all day long - I'm sure that helps with whatever coaching you're selling.  That's not the point of the post.  No one is asking for a 99/1 split with no fees.  The point of the post was regarding a couple of items that simply seemed a bit "off" and cause for concern.  It's one thing to be upfront with investors about deal structure and fees and another to simply hide it inside a PPM or OA hoping investors are too lazy to notice.  I have reason to believe that in one of the two cases above that's what's going on.  

If your "professional" barber that you've received several haircuts from all of a sudden put their hand in your pocket for some extra tip money all the while you've already paid them fairly out of the other pocket and claims that they've decided to change things up and them reaching into your other pocket is disclosed on the backside of their haircut price menu in size 2 font at the bottom right-hand corner, you'd probably find a new barber - whether they're "professional" or not.