Mack companies Chicago
Investor · Canyon Country, CA · Member since 2016 · 15 posts · 18 votes
My husband and I invested in a property with Mack about five years ago. We intended to do several but within the first year it started going bad. Awful tenants, evictions, drops in rent. Nearly impossible to get anyone to respond to emails or phone calls I even wrote a direct letter to the owner, NOTHING. We are now both retired fixed income and can no longer absorb the losses so we told them we want to sell it. Again nothing, no responses. The one person we could talk there to has left. No one will take or answer a call, we don't even know the current shape of the property, with the exception that we were told a month ago that it needed "refreshing" prior to sale. We have other properties, with other management companies but they are all responsive, and positive. We saw all of the press on Mack met with their team, the owner etc. we drank the Koolaid, but anyone else have any dealings with them?
@Christine Wagner sorry to hear that happened to you. I got a bad feeling when talking with Mack so I never invested with them (though I did invest in Chicago heavily). @Jay Hinrichs and @Brie Schmidt have created a site http://turnkey-reviews.com/ that may have helped you find an alternative provider. I have talked with many of the top rated companies on there and generally think many of those are amoung the better operators.
Hello Everyone,
I have mixed reviews with Mack. My wife and I recently purchased our first investment property from Mack a couple of months back. We used a mortgage broker Mack recommended to us. Let's just say the deal got done, but will not use the same mortgage broker moving forward. If you are looking to invest with Mack I would highly recommend you visit their operation before investing. Some of the areas Mack invest in are in some really bad areas of Chicago. Mack makes sure to steer you clear of those areas during the tour. The rental property we purchased is cash flowing nicely, but Mack needs to improve on their communication.
Mack is an excellent company and I have always trusted them. I have a good relationship with Mack and always know that they are taking care of my investments. They know what they are doing when it comes to property management. They operate mostly in the South Suburbs and have improved communities and the quality of life. Mack is setup to manage the issues at hand. Not everyone understands real estate, but I know Mack does.
Mack grew significantly between the last economy crash in 2008 and now. I understand they manage thousands 1000Xs of properties, but I know they always look after my properties and my tenants. I understand they now have over 250 investors so being in customer service myself, I can imagine the load they must have. I have learned so much from when I first invested. They are very smart people. I have always been paid by Mack, and I do not mind they have made adjustments to the payment schedule. It only changed by a few days and I find my statements are accurate and up-to-date on a consistent basis.
I find interesting the post from Alice. I will just say this, I note that you actually live in Illinois so you have the ability to visit Mack and or your properties anytime. Who knows you may even know some of the people at Mack. However I would note that you are the only person posting a positive message. How fortunate for you. I would note that we have again lowered our sales price to 15K less than we paid for it at the depths of the recession...We have had a few showings over three months, no offers, and looks as if we will need to lower it another 10K to 20K just to get out. These properties are so overpriced by Mack it is ridiculous. Coming from the Calif. market a price of 167K sounded cheap to us, Our fault we did not do enough homework, but relied on the ethics of Mack, bad, bad decision. Mack is a scam period. Oh and the long note from the sales manager; above, nothing but a public relations post to try to offset bad posts. He nor anyone else from Mack has made any move to call, email or help. If Mack is such an honest company, who believes in their market we are now priced under what they sold it to us for by thousands, why don't they offer to buy it back? Do not be taken in by this company, please due lots of due diligence. I am now retired but I was president and CEO of a company with close to 100 employees, I have a long history in business, and I know a dishonest company when I run into one.
I am a Mack investor, and have had an experience similar to Christine. My wife and I purchased a single-family home through Mack almost two years ago. It took a few months for the first tenant to come in, but that was ok with us, because our first year of rent was guaranteed. However, that first tenant had to be evicted during the final month of our guarantee, 8-9 months into the lease. Fortunately for us, the first year guarantee covered the refresh costs that time.
The second tenant has NEVER made a full rent payment. They "paid what they could" and a few months came close to the contracted rent amount, but Mack finally pulled the plug on them after another 7 months in our property. Now we are being hit with another refresh fee, re-tenanting, and legal fees from the eviction.
As someone else pointed out previously, Mack's "system" for vetting tenants was a big selling point for us. In fact, the salesperson with whom I was dealing actually told me that they often have tenants who sign two-year leases. This has obviously not been supported by our experiences.
We purchased this property as our first investment property to test whether it really would be possible to build a substantial, reliable income from a portfolio of turnkey investments. So far, at least with Mack, the test has been a dismal failure.
To make matters worse, we also have a hard time getting anyone to follow up with us to address any of our concerns.
Call me cynical, but I can't help but wonder whether Mack preferentially places the higher-quality tenants into the properties that are still under the first-year rental guarantee. Or perhaps more of Mack's resources are directed to those "institutional" buyers.
I'm fed up with Mack and ready to move on. Not sure if we'll look for a different property manager, possibly put it up for sale as a lease-option, or just cut our losses all together and sell out now.
Anyway, if you are an investor and looking for a new "turn-key" investment that will be a significant percentage of your portfolio, move along. Mack isn't worth the hassle.
Hello Everyone,
I have mixed reviews with Mack. My wife and I recently purchased our first investment property from Mack a couple of months back. We used a mortgage broker Mack recommended to us. Let's just say the deal got done, but will not use the same mortgage broker moving forward. If you are looking to invest with Mack I would highly recommend you visit their operation before investing. Some of the areas Mack invest in are in some really bad areas of Chicago. Mack makes sure to steer you clear of those areas during the tour. The rental property we purchased is cash flowing nicely, but Mack needs to improve on their communication.
Forgot to include in my first message, but we also had a bad experience with the mortgage broker recommended by Mack. He made multiple mistakes on our docs, and when we called his attention to them he acted as if we were a pain in his backside. He even went so far as to "reply all," in what I can imagine was supposed to be sent only to his office team, saying that "I should just stop responding to these people." Can't imagine he meant for that to come to us, but we got the message loud and clear. Sorry our business is creating so much work for you!
I also did the tour Bryen mentioned, and had the rare opportunity to walk through the property we ultimately purchased. Most buyers don't have this opportunity prior to making an offer because there is such high demand for Mack's properties (they'll tell you), that you'll need to get an offer in within hours of the email announcing the properties for sale. Of course you have a due diligence period, but everything is rushed as much as possible to get the sale closed ASAP (and to be fair, I can't fault Mack for wanting to turn over their inventory quickly, but it does make it harder to do your legwork).
@Patrick Bushman Patrick, thank you for sharing your concerns. We care deeply about your success and we will do all that we can to ensure a positive experience with us. We have a proven system of underwriting for prospective tenants. Our goal is to always find the best tenants and retain them for as long as possible. Circumstances do arise that are beyond our control with tenants and we act as quickly as we can to rectify the situation. We have a full leasing division that handles all of this. We will be in touch shortly to see how we can help you in any way.
Patrick...I am sadden to hear that yet another "investor" has had the same experience. My thought has always been that the best tenants go to "Mack owned properties" leaving the dregs for investors. That said we are still for sale, no action, and the losses just keep mounting. The saddest part is that not enough people see this thread or site and more and more people will be badly hurt.
I hope that your experience improves, but I don't think that the property manager change will help much with such a large pool of homes owned by Mack, and managed by them it is hard for anyone else to compete. Good luck though, we will all need it.
Well, to his credit, Mr. Mack did contact us personally Tuesday. He's agreed to make some changes to our account that will speed up the process of getting our feet back under us.
While it's been a rocky start, after our conversation I have renewed hope that we'll right the ship and get back to profitability. We all know that vacancies and evictions happen; hopefully we've had our share for a while now as we do plan to continue investing. With more doors, hopefully we'll be better diversified and any single issue like this won't seem like such a big deal.
Patrick...That is good news. I am heartened to hear that you have made some progress. I have been out all day, but when we returned home about four oclock standard pacific time what do you know, I too had a message from Mack Senior. It is too late for me to return the call as it is I think seven in Chicago but I will return the call in the morning, and we shall see what he has to say. I will post after speaking with Jim Mack good or bad. I would like nothing better than to say that our issues have been resolved, but can't see how that is going to happen. That said I want to be fair and open minded...I'll let you all know when we hear...
Wishing you heaps of good luck, Christine! I really do hope that you and I are just the two vocal examples of the fact that investing can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride.
Christine thank you so much for writing this. I am so sorry about your terrible experience and the way that this company took advantage of you but if it helps please know that by posting this you will have saved many investors from experiencing the same fate.
I have posted a lot about turn key real estate in the past. It never ceases to amaze me how humans will always chase what appears to be the easy dollar and never learn their lesson.
These companies are nothing but marketers trying to take advantage of investors with little to no experience in real estate and no knowledge of their local market.
As yet another example as you posted before, these companies make a killing by flipping the properties and selling it to naive newbies at way above market value.
Other than people trying to sell you something, I have never heard of anyone that has been truly happy with their turnkey real estate experience, at least not enough to actually buy multiple properties.
Worst case scenario is a situation like yours which we all see how horrible it turned out, but best case scenario is none of the numbers work out and you don't lose much money but you really don't gain anything, and therefore the whole experience is really like sitting in cash and therefore not even an investment. Except sitting in cash is really not stressful.
The only people that I have heard that are happy with their turnkey experience are people that are naïve and have only held the property for one or two years in which there has not been enough time for things to go wrong which it will. They did not properly calculate the numbers, except the garbage that the turnkey providers call the pro forma and they stupidly believed it.
The lesson here is these companies are out to make money. Nobody will care for your Investment like you will. There is no easy money. If you want to get involved in real estate you really have to do it yourself you cannot trust another company to take care of you as we have seen from this horrific experience.
These companies are all sizzle but no steak. They suck you in and then leave you dry.
If you want to know what investing with a turnkey company is like please do the following: If you have never played poker before and have no experience in it... go read a couple books on poker, which should give you enough of the false illusion that you know what you are doing. Then go to your local casino and play some 10/20 no limit hold em. Do this consistently for a couple of weeks.... see what happens and report back to me. That empty feeling of rage, sadness and being taken advantage of is how you will feel but with a lot more money invested in turnkey properties.
Thanks again for sharing your experience.
Well I promised that I would post good or bad after my conversation with Mack Sr. I spoke to him yesterday at length. I will say that the conversation was cordial and while no promises were made, I was listened to, and I got to vent so that is good. Jim asked me what I wanted to fix this and I told him, though I will not share as I don't think that would be right. He asked me for some time, and I agreed. Is it fixed...no but it is a step in the right direction. To Kyle, I must say there is some truth to what you say but I do have some TK investments that work and have for a number of years. So it is possible, but thanks for your interest.
Hi all, with the holidays and all they entail I have been remiss in posting the progress on our struggles with the Mack property in South Holland. Since my last post we have had a couple more conversations with Jim Mack and Adam and we have come to an agreement which while not yet carried out gives us a better opportunity to stop the bleeding, and make the property more attractive to sell. It has been a bumpy ride. Will the solution make us whole as far as losses we have already sustained, no. However we do appreciate finally being noticed, and we do appreciate the measures that Mack is taking to make things better. As investors we know that there is risk, and that is part of the equation but to risk there should be the possibility of reward. I think our mistake from the beginning is not shouting loud enough when things did not go as anticipated. Mack definitely has some internal issues that they are trying I think to address. To their credit, at least in our case they seem to be making a legitimate effort to make things right. We will move forward with hope and caution...Have a Merry Christmas all
Hi all,
I'm truly sorry about all of your issues with MACK. I've stumbled across most of these threads while researching MACK, Letts and a few other PMs. Do turkeys not allow you to seek other management? I understand that these are rough areas, but there has to be someone else servicing these areas?
From experience, I do know it is often difficult to payout any sooner than the 20th of the month considering rent collection and paying out hundreds and hundreds of owners. I do believe it is most common for payouts to be around the 3rd and 4th week of the month with all things considered.
From experience, I do know it is often difficult to payout any sooner than the 20th of the month considering rent collection and paying out hundreds and hundreds of owners. I do believe it is most common for payouts to be around the 3rd and 4th week of the month with all things considered.
My Sacramento PM informs of collection by the 4th of the month and draws on the 7th every month for the past 5 years. Am I spoiled?
@Brandon Griffin Depends. Do they solely focus on PM or are they turnkey?
They are PM only.
Wow. I'm also glad I stumbled across this thread. Just heard the BP podcast ad for Mack Investments, checked on the website, and figured I'd do a quick search on BP to see what they're all about. According to this thread, it's not looking good. I bet a lot of BP members will read this (assuming they're interested in TK and listen to the podcasts).
@Christine Wagner @Patrick Bushman @Tim Farrell... Thank you for your insights on Mack. I am sorry for the difficulties that you have encountered with Mack. I currently own properties through Mack in Lansing and South Holland. I was considering buying a third property until I came across this thread. I would appreciate you guys continuing to post updates on your experience with them.
BTW... I have also encountered poor communication with them and have continually received my payments late as well. I am growing increasingly concerned after learning of your experiences.
Well I am back with an update in the interest of fairness. Mack did make good on their commitment and put a real live section 8 tenant into the property, who is paying several hundred more than the tenants in the past. In the past we were getting tenants with a heartbeat a little else. It is still our intention to sell the property as we move forward. We have invested for the last six years in trust deeds and find it to be profitable, and much less trouble. We will never be in anything other than a loss position on the South Holland property, but the bleeding has stopped (we think) and Mack did step up. Whether the support came as a result of wanting me to stop posting or just because they finally took notice is hard to say. I think I have said all I have to say on this subject except lesson learned....VET, VET. VET. My sincere thanks to this site and the people posting, I do think that it has a real impact on the community, and on being noticed. My best wishes for continued success for each of you.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-mack-ind...
Well, I don't think I can add anything that hasn't already been said. VET VET VET.
We have terminated their management services and hired a new manager.
Best of luck to all involved.