Morris Invest & Oceanpointe management company

Son D. · 2018-01-04T13:56:38-08:00

Inspired by @Tyler Jahnke and others on BP I've decided to chronicle my experience regarding the property i've purchased with MI & OP management company from now for as long as i own it. The purpose is to hold these companies publicly responsible and allow future investors to be aware of what they are getting into. If you want to know the complete frustrating experience i suggest you read Morris Invest Case Study 2.0 or 3.0 as i had very similar experience therefore see no need to repeat it here. I will only summarize what happened thus far.10/26/2017: I told Larry, a contact representative from Morris Invest, that i've decided to purchase a property. (Please note that this is where Morris Invest stop, but i didn't know it at the time.)11/8/ 2017: i received paperwork to close on the property with Oceanpointe Holding LLC. I immediately went through all the documents and sent it back the same day, along with same day ACH payment. I called them, every single business day, to make sure they've received paperwork and payment.11/14/2017: Finally got someone on the phone who told me that they did receive payment. However, the person i replied email to could not receive email. (I still don't understand this part.) So i immediately resent the paperwork to him as requested. He emailed me within the hour that he received it and everything was all set. So i guess this is officially my closing date now, even though all documents were dated Nov 8.11/16/2017: I received welcome package. I called them repeatedly to talk about their management, each time leaving my number for a call back. (Please note that up to date i have never received a call back from anyone at Oceanpointe ever)12/8/2017: I got to talk to someone regarding management. She answered my questions well enough. i sent the management documents.12/20/2017: My direct deposit info changed so i sent them the updated info and called to see if they received it. Plus they never sent me things i asked for such as sample lease form. Up to date i've never gotten anyone.1/2/2018: I received update on my rehab saying the important things have been done and ready for drywall & paint. I called today to ask them to hold off on that until I have a third party inspect the plumbing & electrical. No call back. I'm afraid next time someone contact me the drywall will already be up and I will not be able to inspect it.

Leonardo Neves

Tampa, FL · Member since 2016 · 2 posts · 1 vote

8y

I have two properties with Oceanpoint and by this time of the month i had the monthly invoice and the rent, but got nothing yet so i tried to call them and all the phone numbers that i have the mailbox is full and no email response from anyone

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Steve K.

Realtor · Boulder, CO · Member since 2016 · 3k+ posts · 5k+ votes

8y

Have any MI/OP investors who have been burned by these guys simply called the local police? If the AG is unresponsive you may get a quicker response from the local PD. Taking payment and not delivering goods is straight up theft. If I paid a contractor who never did the work, I’d report it to the police. A potential theft arrest/conviction would probably only help your case later in the chance of a any potential civil lawsuits as well.

1 Reply

Son D.

OP

Rental Property Investor · boston, MA · Member since 2017 · 202 posts · 222 votes

8y

@Leonardo Neves I emailed them 3 days ago and they told me to wait till the 27th so I've been waiting the whole day today to see if it makes any difference.

0 Reply

Son D.

OP

Rental Property Investor · boston, MA · Member since 2017 · 202 posts · 222 votes

8y

A few hours ago I woke up with message from someone I know associated with oceanpointe asking me along with 250+ other people on the mailing list to join AHI property management. @Todd Burton we have a new name.

"Please review the attached announcement, and documents regarding your Investment Property(s) formerly managed by Oceanpointe Investments Limited, Inc. - Oceanpointe Investments. We anticipate that there maybe Investors with questions and concerns, please do not hesitate to email or give us a call. We will do everything possible to address your concerns and issues during this transition, and moving forward."

Problem was there was no attachment with the email. However, through the mailing list I found others who haven't received rent this month or longer. Investors without knowledge of what's been going on are really confused and worried right now.

@Steve K. I've never thought of just calling the city PD. I always thought they only deal with physical crimes whereas fraud go to different agencies like the AG.

2 Reply

Son D.

OP

Rental Property Investor · boston, MA · Member since 2017 · 202 posts · 222 votes

8y

@Todd Burton when I go do search for the registered agent I see park place, ahi, and blue sky. So there is BLUE SKY PROPERTIES MANAGEMENT and BLUE SKY PROPERTIES MANAGEMENT LLC by Morris, both formed in March.

https://bsd.sos.in.gov/PublicBusinessSearch

1 Reply

Steve K.

Realtor · Boulder, CO · Member since 2016 · 3k+ posts · 5k+ votes

8y

@Son D. Not doing the rehab work you paid them to do is a physical crime no different than any old fake contractor scam on Craig's list. It's simple grand theft. People get arrested for that every day and I bet local PD would be all over it. They wouldn't drive to NJ and get the kingpin but they'd get the guys in Indy. The larger interstate fraud piece, that's obviously more complicated, seems like that could be a RICO case the FBI would be interested in, get them for wire fraud at least possibly a host of other crimes. Creating fake leases for example I bet is a crime (forgery?). Not a lawyer, but if you feel you've been robbed, never hurts to call the cops!

0 Reply

Steve K.

Realtor · Boulder, CO · Member since 2016 · 3k+ posts · 5k+ votes

8y

@Son D. Also congrats on getting access to their client email list. That's amazing. You should write a book and make a movie. I have a feeling this investment might pay off after all but in a much different way than expected!

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Son D.

OP

Rental Property Investor · boston, MA · Member since 2017 · 202 posts · 222 votes

8y

Email from Clayton last night. Interesting how OP was acquired by AHI, a company set up only in March.

"Dear Investor,

As you were recently notified, Oceanpointe Property Management is no longer in business. You were given the option to transition to a new property management company called AHI Property Management which has now acquired Oceanpointe.

Any and all outstanding issues you had from Oceanpointe will now be handled by AHI Property Management. We are not affiliated with this new company or their operations but we have been assured that they are prepared for a smooth transition. You can reach AHI at this phone number: or at during normal business hours.

At Morris Invest, we were notified of this buy-out transition late last week. We were told that property owners would be receiving notification emails along with 8 attachments including a new property management agreement necessary for AHI to begin collecting rents immediately, beginning May 1. If you have not received these attachments, please check your spam folder or reach out to them directly.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this transition may cause. Property ownership, like any home ownership, often has its curveballs. We hope to assist you in dealing with this one to the best of our ability.

Sincerely, "

1 Reply

Todd Burton

Managing Broker / Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2015 · 350 posts · 362 votes

8y

Originally posted by @Son D.:

@Todd Burton

Known Morris Invest and Oceanpointe management aliases ;

AHI, Blue Sky, Boardwalk, Park Place, Urban Construction Management.

Oceanpointe is also now "Quit Claiming" properties to "Indy-Jax Properties" before they sell them.

Question, if Morris claims to be separating from Oceanpointe, why is Oceanpointe now in Jacksonville, FL too? We also know of an owner who has a Jacksonville property purchased through Morris and his management company is Oceanpointe.

They continue to try to hide behind new names but they are the same people doing the same activities.

2 Reply

Jay HinrichsBusiness Member

Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes

8y

@Todd Burton has anyone bothered to check to see if Morris himself is licensed.. you cant be hawking real estate like this without a license..

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Todd Burton

Managing Broker / Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2015 · 350 posts · 362 votes

8y

I've tried but have not found any proof they are not licensed. I know a couple owners have ask them who their Managing Broker is but they have not received any answer. If they do have a Broker, why would they not quickly and easily respond to that inquiry? I think we all know the answer...

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Jay HinrichsBusiness Member

Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes

8y

Originally posted by @Todd Burton:

I've tried but have not found any proof they are not licensed. I know a couple owners have ask them who their Managing Broker is but they have not received any answer. If they do have a Broker, why would they not quickly and easily respond to that inquiry? I think we all know the answer...

Have you looked up Mr. Morris in the state of Indiana department of real estate and see if he holds a salesperson licesne then who his broker is.. that should be step number one..or if he has a license in the state he lives in and is getting referrals from a local broker.. this is how many of the marketers in CA work.. they are licensed in CA and have a referral arrangement with a local broker in the state they are referring clients to.. this is what Morris would need to be legal.

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Todd Burton

Managing Broker / Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2015 · 350 posts · 362 votes

8y

I have but found nothing. The only reason I hesitate to say definitively that they are not licensed as they may have a "Straw Broker" like they do for Oceanpointe. With all the name changes it may be under another name or DBA. Because of license law and ethics, I have to be a bit political on how I present things.

1 Reply

Son D.

OP

Rental Property Investor · boston, MA · Member since 2017 · 202 posts · 222 votes

8y

They are scrambling to backtrack on what they've done. Looks like oceanpointe is still operating under same name?

"We are very sorry for the inconvenience that this has caused. We had tried to work with AHI to strengthen our services and unfortunately that has not been the case. Many of you have been with us for a long time and know that we run a tight ship. Due to blogs like bigger pockets and many other naysayers and competitors that have been all over us we have lost employees and clients. We have since replaced those employees and have people back out on the streets which is what makes us different then all other c class management companies . All of us at Oceanpointe intend to go forward as we have for the past 22 years. We are not going out of business we are merely restructuring going back to our old way of doing things that made us successful. Basically we are slowing down to speed up. We would love anyone who's interested in staying with us to schedule a call with Natalie Bastin or Herbert Whalen over the next 30 days to discuss how things will work going forward. If you're interested in staying with Oceanpointe please schedule a call with us we would love to talk to you and get you back on our team. To schedule this call please email Myself at Ericka at , Bert at or Natalie at. "

1 Reply

John D.

Property Manager · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2017 · 1 post · 0 votes

8y

And years of complaints.... on the news!

In 2015

https://www.theindychannel.com/news/call-6-investi...

And 2017

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.theindychannel.com/2389447674/call-6-tenants-with-no-heat-fear-asbestos-ocean-pointe-investments-promises-to-make-repairs.html

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Jay HinrichsBusiness Member

Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes

8y

Originally posted by @Todd Burton:

I have but found nothing. The only reason I hesitate to say definitively that they are not licensed as they may have a "Straw Broker" like they do for Oceanpointe. With all the name changes it may be under another name or DBA. Because of license law and ethics, I have to be a bit political on how I present things.

I hear ya but still Morris Is the one doing the selling.. he is putting in invoices for marketing fee's no doubt totally selling real estate without a license.. now granted most turn key marketers started this way thinking they could just bill for marketing but soon came to find out they needed to be licensed to be legal. If anyone just took a minute and made a compliant to the IND department of real estate I am sure this would come out.. I mean you can do it.. you dont' have to be a party to the transaction.

like here in Oregon or CA the departments count on agents to help them police the industry..

Here is a response when I sent in an email blast from someone I knew that was not licensed.. same thing he is doing only big time on the internet.. see below for what the state wrote me back

Hello Jay,

Thank you for getting back to me. The advertising copy you attached to your email came out perfectly and will be very helpful. Thanks!

The Agency is well aware that unlicensed “wholesalers” are rampant in our jurisdiction. Addressing the problems is like trying to put out small individual fires in a forest that is burning. The Agency’s investigations are complaint driven, so we rely heavily on the public, and our licensees to bring these individuals to our attention.

Thank you again for the information, if I have further questions for you during the investigation I will certainly reach out.

Best regards,

Frances Hlawatsch | Financial Investigator

State of Oregon - Real Estate Agency

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Joel Wilmoth

Property Management · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2015 · 111 posts · 94 votes

8y

@Son D. letter from OceanPointe- "Many of you have been with us for a long time and know that we run a tight ship. Due to blogs like bigger pockets and many other naysayers and competitors that have been all over us we have lost employees and clients."

You know, when I was younger my late Dad taught me an important lesson. When you make a mistake..own it. Then fix it.

Don't go blame everybody else. Shame on whoever from OP wrote this nonsense and is still living in some kind of fantasy land. People have been hurt and if it was not for places like BP who knows how long this might have gone on.

5 Reply

Son D.

OP

Rental Property Investor · boston, MA · Member since 2017 · 202 posts · 222 votes

8y

Ever since I posted on BP that I have this connection with a list of investors I've received many requests for this list of emails. Many of you I have never talked to before and do not seem to have much of a presence on BP. No offense but I'm not going to send this list all of you guys so we'll get bombarded with ads. Everyone claim to want to help all 200+ of us get through this ordeal and if that is true then from the bottom of my heart i thank you. Since I can not tell who is sincere and who isn't how about from now on we do it like this. Please PM me your info, whatever your message is, etc. and I'll forward it to the email group. Each person will then decide who they want to contact.

3 Reply

Tyler Jahnke

Rental Property Investor · Oakland, CA · Member since 2016 · 341 posts · 643 votes

8y

Official Statement released today from Clayton Morris:

Recently customers of Oceanpointe Property Management were notified that the company is going out of business and transitioning to a new company called AHI Property Management. After search and discovery on behalf of our investors, we have found that this is not true. Oceanpointe Property Management remains in business and intends to continue to be.

It appears that this notice from AHI was a premature announcement from an unsanctioned employee. The poorly-worded grammar and the fact that it was not a blind copy seems to corroborate that story but we have only half of the facts.

At Morris Invest, we are as perplexed by this as you are.

We have had a long-standing relationship with Oceanpointe for property management and rehabs. Last year, Morris Invest referred hundreds of investors to Oceanpointe. This created a backlog of rehabs and longer-than-expected completion timeframes on jobs. Because of this, we decided to start our own property management company in March called Blue Sky Property Management LLC operating solely in our Indianapolis market. We have also partnered with another property management company called Home River to meet the needs of our ever-expanding group of investors. This has allowed us to solve some of the overage problems that were created with Oceanpointe as our main partner in this market.

Oceanpointe does not intend to turn its customers over to AHI. The statement below is from Shelby Glenn at Oceanpointe:

"We had tried to work with AHI to strengthen our services and unfortunately that has not been the case. Many of you have been with us for a long time and know that we run a tight ship. Due to blogs and many other naysayers and competitors that have been all over us we have lost employees and clients. We have since replaced those employees and have people back out on the streets which is what makes us different then all other c class management companies . All of us at Oceanpointe intend to go forward as we have for the past 22 years. We are not going out of business we are merely restructuring going back to our old way of doing things that made us successful. Basically we are slowing down to speed up. We would love anyone who's interested in staying with us to schedule a call with Natalie Bastin or Herbert Whalen over the next 30 days to discuss how things will work going forward. If you're interested in staying with Oceanpointe please schedule a call with us we would love to talk to you and get you back on our team. To schedule this call please email myself, Ericka, Bert or Natalie."

At Morris Invest, we are feeling the profound effects of growth and restructuring. We are working to be an advocate for our investors, no matter who their property management company will be going forward. If you remain with Oceanpointe, they will handle any outstanding issues you will have from here on out. Please reach out to the contacts above. If you are in the midst of a rehab project, Morris Invest will work with the contracted team to move you across the finish line and reduce wait times to the best of our ability.

Our promise to you is this: We will run our property management company to meet your needs with as much transparency and communication as we can. We will refer investors to companies that we know can meet their immediate needs. We will help you solve what needs solving to the best of our ability.

We are very sorry for this confusion.

Sincerely,

Clayton and Natali Morris

Co-Founders, Morris Invest

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Account Closed

Member since 2018 · 10 posts · 14 votes

8y

Wow, I inadvertently missed this thread and created a new discussion.... Sorry about your issues, Son

www.biggerpockets.com/forums/522/topics/565330-morris-invest-and-oceanpointe-rehab-issues-may-2018

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Anthony Khan

Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2016 · 16 posts · 12 votes

8y

Hi All, we are filing a lawsuit against Morris Invest for their poor practices, holding investor funds captive, and not following through on their promises. The communication has been downhill and Clayton is not even responding to emails or phone calls about their failed projects which is consistent with the staff after you start to ask questions about your property and real progress with pictures and proof.

If you would like to file a class action suit we can talk to our legal reps about that. Please let me know as it seems there's dozens of investors who have been defrauded by Morris Invest.

1 Reply

Tom D.

Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2018 · 9 posts · 9 votes

8y

Side note, I have heard from many that the April rent payments from Oceanpointe never came through.

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Son D.

OP

Rental Property Investor · boston, MA · Member since 2017 · 202 posts · 222 votes

8y

On 5/1 I received an email notification regarding my April rent invoice dated 4/20 with no deposit received as of this moment. If you call OP their automatic prompt says they're working on it. They've gone back to their no reply, ignore all inquiries policy.

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Jay HinrichsBusiness Member

Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes

8y

Originally posted by @Anthony Khan:

Hi All, we are filing a lawsuit against Morris Invest for their poor practices, holding investor funds captive, and not following through on their promises. The communication has been downhill and Clayton is not even responding to emails or phone calls about their failed projects which is consistent with the staff after you start to ask questions about your property and real progress with pictures and proof.

If you would like to file a class action suit we can talk to our legal reps about that. Please let me know as it seems there's dozens of investors who have been defrauded by Morris Invest.

probably more like 100s of investors unfortunately.. good luck with it.. there are law firms that specialize in this type of litigation by the way.

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Michael Gansberg

Investor · New York City, NY · Member since 2015 · 388 posts · 563 votes

8y

@Son D. - very sorry to hear about your trials and tribulations. As a long-time investor, I can state unequivocally that bad management is worse than no management at all. You've been caught up in a Ponzi scheme; the good thing is that you're clearly aware of it. So you have three headwinds right now:

you've undoubtedly overpaid for a house.
your "management company" has folded(or is about to, or who knows what's going to happen? Any of those is not exactly reassuring.) After sticking would-be investors with the tab, the fly-by-night company will pop up again with some name evocative of nature, or goodness, or something which the company isn't.
you're without good management.

The first problem is likely beyond repair, as it seems this Ponzi scheme is growing long in the tooth. This is partially because the Ponzi scheme is receiving attention(from social media and other sources,) which will crimp the quantity of future funds available to pay off prior investors. The prior investors- who are unfortunately large in number- are also learning of MI's perfidy, creating a rush for the exits(and an avalanche of redemption requests which will go unanswered.) I believe MI is at risk of imminent collapse due to likely reduced new funds coming in paired with increased scrutiny from the law(though when something has already collapsed, can it collapse further?)

The MI investor today is akin to the voter in 2016 who expected certain things from their vote and now refuses to believe that they've been completely hoodwinked. The voter from 2016 is kind of stuck with it, but you're not. The longer you hope MI will make things right, the more money you'll lose. That's the bad news.

The good news is that you're a real estate investor now. You haven't sunk $20k into one of those useless guru classes, but you've sunk approximately double that into a troubled asset. Now you can really learn about real estate firsthand. Go look at the property with your own two eyes. Get the tenant's contact info. Let them know that you care about making sure their apartment works for them. Get a copy of the lease. Meet a few property managers and hire the one you like best(check referrals first! There are plenty on BP who are rescuing MI investors I'm sure.)

I'm pulling for you. These MI stories are really hard to read, but there will always be unscrupulous operators in markets as long as they can find willing supporters.

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Morris Invest & Oceanpointe management company

Morris Invest & Oceanpointe management company

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