Hi All,
I am only new to this forum and having read all these postings decided I had to step in and give my 2 cents worth.
I come from a finance background and specifically property investment for nearly 20 years. Last year I decided I had enough of the finance industry and was fortunate enough to sit back for the last 12 months and not work as i had a regular income coming in anyway. I'd like to think I caught up on reading, lying in the sun etc but the fact is I spent the whole time researching USA property with the aim of investing myself. I'm an Aussie but from 2001 to 2005 I worked in Phoenix AZ with a company that built, financed and sold duplexes to Canadians initially but after 9/11 redirected marketing towards Californians instead. So I have had some experiance in US real estate. I did buy and sell while I was there and witnessed first hand the crazy market that Phoenix became and the liar loans as well....crazy times indeed. After much research online and flying back & forth I decided that now is a great time to invest in the right market in the US. During this time last year I saw an ad in the paper from MyUSAProperty looking for consultants so I thought what better way to get some information then to get it first hand....and to see if they knew anything that I didn't. Well I got the job (not that I was looking for a career) so started the training. Training consisted mainly of learning a script word by word and some high pressure sales techniques. They deliberately kept you ignorant so you wouldn't know too much information. Even as an employee you couldn't get straight answers. 3 main players involved in the management. Surprise, surprise....2 of them have a history of ripping off property investors with 2 tiered marketing. Lawsj....for your benefit this involves selling real estate to out of town investors on the premise that they won't have a clue about local property values and they end up buying property that a local wouldn't touch that is overpriced to the tune of $30-$50K....does this start to sound familiar ?? The numbers certainly didn't stack up. The property they sell has to be overpriced no questions asked. For the $3850 they charge...they were giving $2500 away to the consultant so that leaves $1350 between 3 people in charge and not even considering advertising and office costs etc and for an organisation with the amount of staff and offices they have....doesn't add up at all. So after 2 weeks I left knowing these guys have bad intentions for the Australian investing public and seems I was right.
I'm heading back in 3 weeks...this time to Dallas TX. Some incredible statistics keep coming out of TX and I have a company that I am seeing that sells properties from $50K to $140K. A close friend of mine who lives in the US referred me to them. All are foreclosed properties and have had major refurbishments carried out on them and now have tenants in place. They are able to achieve financing for foreign nationals from a Dallas private bank. Minimum 50% LTV and possibly up to 65%....depends on how much evidence I can give them regarding my income etc. Rates start from 8% as a foreign national. Even better deals for US citizens with 80% LTV available. Property Management is provided as well with the first 3 months free of management fee's. Commission is 8% of rent collected....I understand normal agreements in TX allow for the property manager to charge 10% of the months rent whether you have a tenant or not. They currently have over 500 properties under management with vacancy rate of 1.7%. I think what I like best about them is that their primary market is US investors and haven't been established just to service the Australian market. I have yet to see any so called "buyers agents" that I would trust.
Anyway...as I said I am going across to do my own due diligence and will report back my findings to you all
I am only new to this forum and having read all these postings decided I had to step in and give my 2 cents worth.
I come from a finance background and specifically property investment for nearly 20 years. Last year I decided I had enough of the finance industry and was fortunate enough to sit back for the last 12 months and not work as i had a regular income coming in anyway. I'd like to think I caught up on reading, lying in the sun etc but the fact is I spent the whole time researching USA property with the aim of investing myself. I'm an Aussie but from 2001 to 2005 I worked in Phoenix AZ with a company that built, financed and sold duplexes to Canadians initially but after 9/11 redirected marketing towards Californians instead. So I have had some experiance in US real estate. I did buy and sell while I was there and witnessed first hand the crazy market that Phoenix became and the liar loans as well....crazy times indeed. After much research online and flying back & forth I decided that now is a great time to invest in the right market in the US. During this time last year I saw an ad in the paper from MyUSAProperty looking for consultants so I thought what better way to get some information then to get it first hand....and to see if they knew anything that I didn't. Well I got the job (not that I was looking for a career) so started the training. Training consisted mainly of learning a script word by word and some high pressure sales techniques. They deliberately kept you ignorant so you wouldn't know too much information. Even as an employee you couldn't get straight answers. 3 main players involved in the management. Surprise, surprise....2 of them have a history of ripping off property investors with 2 tiered marketing. Lawsj....for your benefit this involves selling real estate to out of town investors on the premise that they won't have a clue about local property values and they end up buying property that a local wouldn't touch that is overpriced to the tune of $30-$50K....does this start to sound familiar ?? The numbers certainly didn't stack up. The property they sell has to be overpriced no questions asked. For the $3850 they charge...they were giving $2500 away to the consultant so that leaves $1350 between 3 people in charge and not even considering advertising and office costs etc and for an organisation with the amount of staff and offices they have....doesn't add up at all. So after 2 weeks I left knowing these guys have bad intentions for the Australian investing public and seems I was right.
I'm heading back in 3 weeks...this time to Dallas TX. Some incredible statistics keep coming out of TX and I have a company that I am seeing that sells properties from $50K to $140K. A close friend of mine who lives in the US referred me to them. All are foreclosed properties and have had major refurbishments carried out on them and now have tenants in place. They are able to achieve financing for foreign nationals from a Dallas private bank. Minimum 50% LTV and possibly up to 65%....depends on how much evidence I can give them regarding my income etc. Rates start from 8% as a foreign national. Even better deals for US citizens with 80% LTV available. Property Management is provided as well with the first 3 months free of management fee's. Commission is 8% of rent collected....I understand normal agreements in TX allow for the property manager to charge 10% of the months rent whether you have a tenant or not. They currently have over 500 properties under management with vacancy rate of 1.7%. I think what I like best about them is that their primary market is US investors and haven't been established just to service the Australian market. I have yet to see any so called "buyers agents" that I would trust.
Anyway...as I said I am going across to do my own due diligence and will report back my findings to you all