Turnkey Disaster - Need Advice!

Turnkey Disaster - Need Advice!

USA · Member since 2015 · 7 posts · 4 votes

I'm looking for some advice on this nightmare of a property I just purchased. I just purchased my 1st investment property and I decided to go with a Turnkey property from Norada Real Estate Investments, because I really wanted a property that would be all ready to go/hands off with a property manager, had tenants living in the property, and would yield me a really nice cash flow. Unfortunately, I have received none of these from the duplex I just purchased. I signed the PA in August, but the property didn't close until December, which was said due to them needing time to repair the property and get it into perfect condition. Here is a brief synopsis of what's going on since the 1st day I got the property:

-There is major flooding in both of the units, and many broken appliances. This was not discovered in the inspection.

-The tenants have been complaining about this since November (before I owned it)

-One side is completely unlivable, so the tenant hasn't paid rent since December 1 and refuses to pay anymore rent. We are trying to evict them now (they said they will be out on March 5th, but we'll see how that goes.)

-After a ton of arm twisting, Norada and the rehabber (not exactly sure how this works) has agreed to do some of the repairs, but he is moving very slow on them and the property is still not repaired -This has been a bigger issue of lots of finger pointing and nobody has even apologized to me yet for what has happened.

-The repairs are supposed to be done "next month" (another tentative date that I'm sure will get missed) which means I will have missed out on rent for January, February, and March.

-I will also forfeit 1 month's worth of rent to the property management company as a fee for them finding new tenants. This will mean I'm out roughly 4 months of rent assuming we can get it rented by 4/1 with a tenant that is still living there without paying rent.

-The property manager has informed me that there is no way the new tenants will pay the originally promised rent amount by Norada, even with the repairs; thus, reducing the overall cash flow I was expecting.

I'm reaching out for some advice, as this is my first investment property and the only thing I've been told is just to "hang tight" until the repairs are done. But every day that passes is a day I lose money on rent, and then another month that I have to pay for the mortgage out of pocket since one side alone will not cover it. What are my options here? What would you do if you were me?

Thanks for reading and I appreciate the advice!

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Investor · Baltimore, MD · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 688 votes
10y
Advice? TRUST NOBODY BUT YOURSELF.
See this reply in the discussion

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  • Specialist · Orange County, CA · Member since 2008 · 2k+ posts · 623 votes
    10y

    UPDATE #3:  Provider did go to the property today but found the power off.  It is being turned back on very shortly by the property manager.  I'll be pressing for a completion date once they get in to check what we've laid out for them on our repair list.

  • Specialist · Orange County, CA · Member since 2008 · 2k+ posts · 623 votes
    10y

    UPDATE #4:  Just waiting on confirmation from local rehabber that repair list was completed.  Did not get a call back yesterday (Friday), so I called and left a message today (Saturday).  Also emailed him twice.

    Either way, I spoke with the property manager who is going to go ahead and inspect to property next week, and start marketing the property on Monday, April 4th.  The goal now is to take the rehabber out of the picture and place a qualified tenant in the unit.

    As a bonus, I was able to negotiate a $1,000 "rental loss" credit from the rehabber which will sent to Sean.  He was happy to hear about that yesterday when we spoke.

  • Investor · Queens, NY · Member since 2014 · 16 posts · 4 votes
    10y

    @ sea

    @Sean Robinson  there are many of us on the fence about turnkeys reading this, we are all hoping it all goes well for you.  After what you've been thru.. it can only get better from here! lol    How did your home inspector( you hired) miss all of this?   What could a newbie do to prevent this??   Boot on the ground is not possible for a lot of us.  I have been warned to buy turnkeys only thru turnkey companies who actually do the rehab and PM(basically from start to finish) for the very reasons you are running into.  For more experienced people promoters are great ways to find better bargains.  

    @Marco Santarelli as a newbie I would think you would be responsible for not vetting this property with your TK for your client who is a newbie.   After all this is your business model.  

    Marco he looks like he will do everything in his power to make you whole.. since biggerpockers is likely a big stream of new biz for him and it would be wise for him to fix this for you since this is now public info and there are MANY newbies like me reading this and going... Hmmm... 

    Good luck Sean,  I thank you for posting your experience for all of us newbies to learn.    Please keep us posted!     

  • Levi T.Pro Member
    Rental Property Investor · Tucson AZ / Nice FR / Washington DC · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    10y
    Why did Norada even promote/sell a "turnkey" building with inflated rents? That's just asking for trouble. Frankly that's a huge red flag that makes all this questionable. If anyone is promoting a flipped/turkey property with inflated rents, it's borderline fraud. Any professional in real estate, worth his or her grain of salt would know in a minute if a property was inflated. On top of that, they are promoting it as turnkey, meaning they already vetted the deal and insured it's good, turnkey, ready to go, no worries. Not saying Norada is doing this, but I've seen others pump and dump on unsuspected new investors with triplex and quads. Slapping lipstick on a pig with repairs, then dumping none qualified, non paying tenants into units to make the unit have inflated rents so it could sell for more. Sorry to say, this is likely just the start of the money burn. I would get out quickly. Just for example, $100 a month lower in rent per unit will cost you $35,000 in lost value when you go to sell a property with 4 units. That's before repairs, tenant problems, and whatever else from the time you buy it till the point you sell it.
  • Specialist · Orange County, CA · Member since 2008 · 2k+ posts · 623 votes
    10y

    @Tim C.  @Levi T.  

    Thanks for your contributions here.

    In actual fact, this was one of our many vetted providers.  We've worked with them for about two years with no issues.  It was only in the last four months or so that issue started to surface. It was our clients that brought it to our attention.  We investigated and discuss that with the provider on a number of occasions. Things didn't get resolved in the end and we fire them.

    The tenant was placed by the provider and so any inflated rent was because of the property management company he was using for placement, not management. They may have deliberately inflated the rents to make it more "salable", but I advise never working with that  property manager anyway.

    I'm in regular communication with Sean and the property manager, and we have been proactively turning the property around. In fact we've gone ahead and stripped and replaced the entire roof down to the boards this weekend which was the root of many problems.  It is my mission to help Sean on this and stabilize his property!

    Thank you for expressing concern as a newbie.  I'm very sensitive to what is mentioned in the forums to prevent any distortion from facts and reality.

    Continued success!

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