HomeUnion vs. Roofstock vs. Memphis Invest
Member since 2018 · 10 posts · 1 vote
HomeUnion vs. Roofstock vs. Memphis Invest
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Rental Property Investor · Scottsdale, AZ · Member since 2012 · 314 posts · 146 votes
7yI like that phrase “civilian sellers” - good way to put it, @Jay Hinrichs
12 Replies
- Member since 2018 · 5 posts · 1 vote7y
Everytime I post about Memphis invest it's crickets in here. All I can say is I watched all their intro videos, read their book "The Turnkey Revolution" which was great and had several calls with one of their on boarding people and they are very professional. I just have not pulled the trigger yet. I really want to hear from people who have invested with them first. As for the other two I've never even heard of them. Good luck if you hear anything please let me know.
- Specialist · Paradise Valley, AZ · Member since 2018 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes7y
It's a good idea to run a spreadsheet when considering Turnkey. Here is one that helps.
- Rental Property Investor · Orange County, CA · Member since 2016 · 512 posts · 374 votes7y
Roofstock is essentially a market place for buyer and sellers. they facilitate transactions
Memphis Invest is a passive investment provider. you can read posts from @Chris Clothier on BP. he is a regular contributor.
what city are you interested in for investing?
- 7yJay HinrichsBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
all three are distinctly different in form and function.
roofstock is more of a MLS type system highly automated representing civilian sellers by and large and some turn key companies will list their stock on Roofstock.. its pretty snazzy however after care is between you and the PM.
Homeunion has some hybrid of turnkey marketing company in the same vane as Jason Hartman Maverick Norada etc.
MI is what many consider the gold standard in turn key investing.. very deep experience in the space.. and control all aspects..
- Rental Property Investor · Scottsdale, AZ · Member since 2012 · 314 posts · 146 votes7y
I like that phrase “civilian sellers” - good way to put it, @Jay Hinrichs
- Realtor, General Contractor, and Developer · Redding, CA · Member since 2009 · 7k+ posts · 4k+ votes7y
@Dean Iodice Have you tried doing a search? There's been a lot of posts regarding Memphis Invest, where people have asked about them, and discussed them. I have no knowledge of their business one way or another.
- Rental Property Investor · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2015 · 155 posts · 81 votes7y
@Ananda Wasan I have purchased from Memphis Invest. My experience has very positive for the most part. If you decide turnkey is right for you then they are probably the most trusted. I like that one of the owners Chris is active on BP so they are accountable in that sense. They seem to address unhappy clients pretty well. Im not familiar with home union but saw a really detailed post on Roofstock. It sounded much less personal. here is the post https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/92/topics/468304-roofstock-case-study @jason gines took the time to layout his process step by step. I would definitely read through that.
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes7y
HomeUnion
I recently sold a property out here in Cleveland for an investor who bought through HomeUnion. Main reason he reached out to me to sell the property was because HomeUnion was exiting the property management business. Don't know if that's country wide or just here in the Cleveland market but something you should probably research.
Roofstock
Roofstock isn't really a turnkey company. Rather just a website with private sellers selling their properties. They are more comparable to an MLS or a company like Zillow than to a turnkey company.
Memphis Invest
More or less Memphis Invest is considered the gold standard in the turnkey space. Huge company, great reviews, stellar service well respected in the business. Only thing that could be seen as a negative is you'll be paying a premium for their products and services. I say seen as a negative because I don't consider it an actual negative as one should expect to pay a premium price for a premium product or service but sometimes investors want to pinch pennies at all costs so the pricing can be a turn off to some.
- Metairie, LA · Member since 2016 · 67 posts · 41 votes7y
I have not looked at Homeunion, I have reviewed roofstock a few times (I like that they post "whole portfolios" for sale, that is interesting), but I have been using Memphis Invest for roughly 18 months now and I have several properties with them.
My experience is that they are indeed HIGHLY professional and control all aspects of the deal (most importantly from my perspective the property management).
This isn't a commercial for them, I am just a customer of theirs, I don't get any remuneration for recounting my experiences, and if they were bad, I would recount them just the same.
Memphis Invest is very transparent, they will provide numbers to their clients that list statistics across their 5000 property portfolio. When they tell you that they have an X percent vacancy, it is comforting to know that the number isn't based on 6 properties in one neighborhood, but thousands across multiple states.
They provide a service, so you pay them for that service. If you were capable of sourcing a house in a good market, rehabbing it, filling it, and managing it, you would make more money on the property than you would if you just bought it from Memphis Invest. One would argue that you would be getting paid for all the work you did that they did not, but that is a personal choice. If you don't want to pay that premium don't go turnkey.
Each property that I have purchased from them has followed the same process, but this is real eastate and there are risks and stuff does happen. In the cases where stuff has happened, I have found the Memphis Invest goes beyond what they should in making it right. They only conclusion I can draw from their behavior in these matters is that they want to keep me in the fold and would rather sacrifice a little margin an a deal today, to keep our relationship strong (which one could conclude is better for their long term business and hopefully my long term wealth).
A few examples:
One house we had under contract, I got a 3rd party inspection that came back bad. Memphis Invest sent me an engineers report that contradicted my inspection. I asked if they would get another engineer's report done (at their expene). They did, the first engineer basically busted his inspection and the property had issues that I didn't want to deal with. A perfectly fair and square deal would be for us to break the contract and all walk away. Instead, they recouped my costs on the investment up to that point (which I think was inspection, maybe appraisal, and a couple other odds and ends). It wasn't a million dollars, probably less than a thousand. They had no contractual obligation to make that right, I didn't expect them to pay that back (it was part of my due diligence and part of real estate). They did it because that's just how they roll.
A house that I owned for maybe 8 months had an eviction (long story, no level of property management could have kept this situation from happen, it was just a "this is real estate and stuff happens situation). I wasn't excited about an eviction, I didn't like that I had a vacancy for a couple months, the cash flow took a hit. Again, just because this was early in the lease and it was not a good way for me to start my relationship with them (it was one of my first properties with them), they stepped in and "shared" the burden of the vacancy with me. They didn't have to, they were not obligated to, but they did because that's how they roll.
I have a couple other property stories of them going above and beyond, but I don't really want to write a book here. Let me just add one last story. I visited their Houston Office before I bought a property. It was a good office, but a satellite office clearly. A few people and what not. This year, I happened to be in Dallas and visited that office which technically is also a satellite to the main office in Memphis, though the Dallas office probably has 25 people and the Memphis one is 3 or 4 times that big.
I really hadn't announced my visit, I texted someone late the day before and asked if I could stop by and they said sure. As I was walking in, Kent Clothier Sr was preparing to walk out. Kent is the patriarch of the family and founder of the business and clearly a very actively engaged company principal.
When Kent saw that one of his clients was in the office, he came over, introduced himself, and then started asking the kinds of questions that I was very happy to field: "What can we do better?" "When have we not met your expectations?" "Is there something that 'I' can do to make your experience better?" "Are we doing a good enough job that you would refer people to us given the chance?"
So, long story short, investing with Memphis Invest is still real estate, there are still risks, there are still tenants (we have an eviction I am dealing with right now), but they do make the process streamlined, they do manage the tenants and the clients VERY actively (they are going to call you every week for a while and then every month thereafter). If you don't want to call you, you need to tell them to not call you. As a company, I get the idea that they are customer service 1st, 2nd, 3rd and then Real Esate 4th.
I wish they did some small multifamily, it would be easier to scale the portfolio 4 doors per deal and per loan than 1 at a time, but their point against that (and it is hard to refute) is that they 100% know their SFR business and model and they don't deviate from what they know.
- Investor · Away · Member since 2017 · 167 posts · 131 votes7y
Now I have never seen these guys advertise but I went to an investor meetup and heard from them directly. MidSouth Home Buyers have such a great business model and support for their product that if you are looking in Memphis I don't know that I would go anywhere else. Last I checked they had a six month waiting list, which they also do fairly, for one of their deals and they were putting them out fairly quickly.
The waiting list is basically you saying you want to be offered a property when it comes available. You will be offered their current deal when your turn is up, you get put in a top ten for like three or four deals before you are dropped down to the bottom again. Their deals are all super similar so there isn't a good reason not to pull the trigger really.
They say you can use conventional financing too, they install a tenant and manage the property. They understand investors and creating a cash flowing property. The fact they have a waiting list should tell you how satisfied their customers are.
If you are a single family investor would is going for cashflow I don't know there is a better company in Tennessee doing what they do.
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