All Forum Posts by: Antoine Martel

@James Parsons were you able to get a lender squared away for your deal or can I still help you out here? (I know this was from a while ago, but wanted to follow up)

Quote from @Neil Patel:

Quote from @Nate Marshall:

Quote from @Chad Shultz:

You don't need to by anyone's "system" for flipping houses. Your best bet is to find your local REIA chapter and join. There, you can learn anything you want about Real Estate Investing from actual investors who are in your area. Cost will be minimal compared to falling for the systems where they want to keep upselling you.

 $2,500.00 oh you want a lenders database another $2,500.00 oh now scope of work and rehab resources another $2,500.00 but wait then we have..

SUPER MYSTERY WEEKEND in Vegas! 

 Nate, has this been your experience with the program or are you talking in general?

Hey Neil, Antoine here (owner of FlipSystem and MartelTurnkey). Happy to let Nate chime in, however I did a search of our system and I do not see we have discussed in detail our program with anybody named Nate Marshall. Nonetheless, if you would like to hear directly from the source everything we provide to our clients and the associated fee we charge for that value, I am more than happy to discuss with you further. I will say that the alluded to fee structure of essentially up-charging or “a la carte” costs is definitely not how we have structured our business. Regardless, hope you find the right resource for you to scale your real estate investing whether it be with FlipSystem or another path.

Quote from @Nate Marshall:

Quote from @Chad Shultz:

You don't need to by anyone's "system" for flipping houses. Your best bet is to find your local REIA chapter and join. There, you can learn anything you want about Real Estate Investing from actual investors who are in your area. Cost will be minimal compared to falling for the systems where they want to keep upselling you.

 $2,500.00 oh you want a lenders database another $2,500.00 oh now scope of work and rehab resources another $2,500.00 but wait then we have..

SUPER MYSTERY WEEKEND in Vegas! 

Hey Nate, Antoine here (owner of FlipSystem and MartelTurnkey). Super Mystery Weekend in Vegas sounds fun…but the alluded to fee structure is definitely not what we do at FlipSystem. If you have heard that is how we charge for the value provided, then unfortunately somebody is spreading very false information. As always, happy to connect directly about everything we provide for a fixed fee, and the investing strategy we help our clients achieve.

Quote from @Chad Shultz:

You don't need to by anyone's "system" for flipping houses. Your best bet is to find your local REIA chapter and join. There, you can learn anything you want about Real Estate Investing from actual investors who are in your area. Cost will be minimal compared to falling for the systems where they want to keep upselling you.

Hey Chad, Antoine here (owner of FlipSystem and MartelTurnkey). Totally agree that nobody “needs” to buy anyone’s system; FlipSystem is a program designed to help investors begin, scale, and succeed at a far faster rate than what they likely would on their own, often in a market they do not live in (I am a strong believer in “live where you want, and invest where makes sense”). As you mentioned, I had my start in real estate by simply networking with investors in my area. What I found was that investing in the market I lived in did not make any sense for the metrics I was trying to achieve, nor did I have the capital to compete in the LA market. By investing out of state I was able to hit the return metrics I was looking for while still living wherever I wanted (previously LA and now Miami). The ability to pivot into a refinance/BRRRR with positive cash flow was one of the big benefits I saw to not just staying within my local market. I absolutely think joining your local REIA is a great strategy to learn, network, raise money, and have fun with other investors, but for myself and the clients of MartelTurnkey and FlipSystem, most of them have decided it makes more financial sense to invest in places they do not live.
We are transparent with our clients about the costs before they join, and there is no additional unknown “upselling” as you suggested. Happy to further explain our fee structure and value directly to anybody that is interested in hearing the details.

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:

Quote from @Greg H.:

Quote from @Neil Patel:

Greg, from my understanding, they're charging a hefty price in order to give you all these facilities. 

No doubt they are. I would still ask what they need you for as they are providing every piece of the puzzle?

Also, who pays if the flip loses money?

Armando Montalongo started the how to flip Guru programs and then Nick Vertucci followed suit.. there was a lot of pressure from the FTC as folks complained they lost  money..  you can buy Montalongos and Vertucci's witten materials on E bay for 50 bucks.. flipping houses right now has died down a ton. so Uber caution.

Hey Jay, Antoine here (owner of FlipSystem and MartelTurnkey). I definitely agree that there are a ton of great resources to read and view written (and visual) material about flipping and real estate investing in general — Bigger Pockets is probably the best example in real estate of just how much information you can obtain for free nowadays and don’t even need to pay the $50 on e-bay. At FlipSystem we are offering infinitely more than just written resources, and our clients value the ongoing coaching/advising, access to vetted teams, introductions to lenders and insurance companies etc that we offer. If somebody is just looking to read introductory information on flipping, then FlipSystem would not the best fit, but if an investor is looking to actively begin flipping out of state and focus on base-hit micro flips like I discussed in my recent Bigger Pocket podcast, then our program provides immense value that is unattainable from a low-priced resource such as just a book or recorded video.

As you mentioned, flipping houses should always be done with caution and careful consideration. We intentionally provide a number of checks and balances within FlipSystem (deal analysis, rehab bid audits, and inspection report reviews just to name a few) to ensure that our team is always providing feedback and analysis to clients on their potential deals. By doing so, we can help our clients steer clear of potentially unprofitable deals, and maximize returns on successful projects by clearly identifying an exit strategy early-on and tailoring the overall project scope and strategy to align with that exit. As I’m sure you understand being a veteran in this industry, there is a big difference between just education and actual deal execution; we strive to provide both!

Quote from @Greg H.:

Quote from @Neil Patel:

Greg, from my understanding, they're charging a hefty price in order to give you all these facilities. 

No doubt they are. I would still ask what they need you for as they are providing every piece of the puzzle?

Also, who pays if the flip loses money?

Hey again Greg, Antoine here (BP requires me to give this intro every time). We basically have two options as a for-profit company: A: scale massively with huge overhead (like we were doing at 50 deals a month at times at MartelTurnkey) or B: leverage our experience and success to train others how to be profitable with micro flips and be less vulnerable to market volatility and shifts. Our clients can scale from a few deals a year to 2+ deals a month, and back down if necessary.

Long-story short, we don’t “need” the clients, and the clients don’t “need” us, but we have found there is a strong value provided to clients who do decide to work with us and want to avoid a lot of those early on trial and error pains and expenses. Happy to discuss further with you directly if you want to keep engaging.

Quote from @Neil Patel:

Greg, from my understanding, they're charging a hefty price in order to give you all these facilities. 

Hey Neil, Antoine here (owner of FlipSystem and MartelTurnkey). The program is not a cheap investment, and we are strong believers that it is well worth the value when applied correctly and efficiently. As others have said here, an investor can absolutely go and build a team on their own, but the trial and error of trying it on your own could definitely add up to more losses than the investment in the program cost. The other value proposition we add is that we have been personally investing in these markets for nearly 10 years through MartelTurnkey on over 650 projects, so in addition to just contacts, we help provide overall deal structure and analysis from a non-biased perspective (agents have their own agenda, PMs have their own, etc). A lot of our clients have “9-5” jobs, so they are willing to invest in our assistance to help them cut down on required input time and scale much quicker than if they were starting at ground level on their own. Of course we are not going to be the right fit for every investor, but happy to engage with you further if you have interest in hearing more about our value proposition.

Quote from @Greg H.:

Why would a company find, Fund, renovate and flip and give you the profit? When it sounds to good to be true….it is

Hey Greg, Antoine here (owner of FlipSystem and MartelTurnkey). That is a valid question you ask. To be transparent, we are a for profit business that definitely wants to make money (we don’t pretend to do this for charity)! That being said, the overhead and team I had to build and maintain to scale a flipping business to 650+ flips with MartelTurnkey was exhaustive to say the least. Since the turnkey fix and flip business model is proven, it seemed to be a good opportunity to leverage the experience and success of my team to help others do the same. One of our clients at FlipSystem can reasonably do 2+ deals a month without having to “grow their own team”, by leveraging our existing teams on the ground and backend support at FlipSystem. I am a pretty firm believer that somebody does not have to lose in business just for somebody else to win; yes FlipSystem is successful, but so are our clients. Good old fashioned win-win.

Quote from @Becca F.:

Quote from @Antoine Martel:

Quote from @Becca F.:

On Martel's FlipSystem site, it says people make $10,000 to $20,000 per deal after expenses. I think most of his flips are in inexpensive cities like Cleveland, Detroit area, etc. 

https://flipsystem.com/faq/

I think $10,000 to $20,000 (before IRS taxes) is a really small profit margin. If the house takes longer than anticipated to sell, that $10,000 could go to $5000 or $0 quickly. Holding costs (insurance for vacant property, utilities, and interest payments for Hard Money Loans) can eat up your profits. Then if it doesn't sell, I would assume the exit strategy is to hold it as rental?  When I was considering doing a flip, I was looking at least minimum $40,000 profit margin in the Midwest when I did the deal analysis. I wouldn't go through all that trouble to make $10,000 to $20,000 but I guess that amount is acceptable to some people.

I know a few successful flippers and they're in the San Francisco Bay Area  - their profit is at least $200,000 to over a $1 million. I've talked to several investors and they'll tell me how they did their flips and not charge me $15,000 lol :)

Hey Becca, Antoine here (the owner of FlipSystem), we absolutely agree with your own assertion that there are numerous profitable strategies in real estate investing. As you mentioned in your reply post, you are looking for $40k minimum profit, but also know people that have done over $1,000,000 in profit. Over our 10+ years in the industry we have seen data that there is an almost unlimited high-end profit margin, but we also feel there is a relatively untapped and large inventory of lower profit flips available that most investors are not focusing on (that have multiple risk mitigation measures in place as well).

Our goal is to find the balance of profit, risk, and consistency. The potential in the Bay Area or other coastal markets is massive, but we have seen the risk is also high and the consistency for the average investor can be low. Building out a system of consistent deal flow for $200,000+ profit single-family flips is not something the average investor is realistically going to achieve in a lifetime.

Instead we focus on building out a system that is setup to handle multiple projects at a time, with multiple feature deals in the pipeline ready to go once capital is available again. Some people like to bet big and potentially lose big, we prefer to place medium size bets and consistently win more modest rewards.

By primarily investing in properties with an all-in cost under $100,000, we often have multiple viable exit strategies in case the original one does not work out (we don’t pretend to have a guaranteed crystal ball, but we do like to have options at the end, and we find that our students do as well!) Most deals that are predicted to have a $50,000+ profit in more expensive markets only have one viable exit strategy, and if the market shifts during the holding period, there is often very little that investors can do to quickly pivot.

There are tons of ways to succeed in real estate, and I’m not here to shut down anyone’s path.

I hope this paints a clearer picture of why we focus on low-cost micro-flips across the Midwest rather than swinging for grand slams on the more expensive markets. ! A bunch of base hits, or one big grand slam, will all equal up to wins in the end, we rather just not risk swinging and missing big.

We would love to connect with you about our investing strategy and why we think there is so much risk-adjusted opportunity in micro-flipping. Feel free to reach out to me directly to carry on the conversation or check out episode 878 on Bigger Pockets where I discuss in more detail some of the above benefits to micro-flipping https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-878

I appreciate your feedback Antoine. I agree that there are numerous ways to invest in real estate: mobile home parks, self-storage, syndications, STR, MTR, LTR, flipping etc.

I've decided flipping isn't for me in any location. I attempted 2 flips in the Indianapolis area - seller refused to accept a lower offer and the other one the renovation costs were going to be way over after the inspection report. I definitely don't have the risk tolerance to try to flip in the Bay Area although I knew a few people doing this. 

I also did get on a call with your mom about Martel Turnkey properties. I went with Indianapolis area because I used to live there (moved back to CA, don't like winters) so I knew the market. I felt that I would have had to do months of research on the cities Martel Turnkey was investing in. I bought 2 Class C homes in Indy - they were renovated by the sellers not me.  Interestingly the first one is having issues, tenant calling in 6 times in 7 months for repairs after minor repairs were done after a full inspection (before tenant moved in). I'm losing money $300 to $700 (with the last rent) each month on what was supposed to positive cash flow $176 a month on paper at 6.99% interest rate. Hopefully this is just first year challenges and not will be going on for years 2, 3 etc. I'm trying to problem solve this with my property manager. What type of checks and balances does Martel Turnkey offer for OOS investors? (This is kind of getting off topic from flipping).

At this point I will just stick with my 2 Bay Area properties and 1 Class A Indy suburb home (the one I lived in and rented out), not sure if I will buy anymore OOS.  For me, it's just difficult to invest OOS, can't check up on a property every week that's 2000 miles away and it's extremely stressful for me. 

Hey Becca. Definitely glad to hear that you were able to learn early on that flipping may not be for you. Regardless of the many systems and procedures we have in place at FlipSystem and MartelTurnkey, there is admittedly still inherent risk and unknowns to any type of real estate investing (at least the ones that have the potential to generate more than a couple % return a year like most of our successful students do). As you mentioned, we have also seen first hand and through our students that it typically takes a few offers to get the ball rolling, and then there is a bit of a snowball effect once you get into the process of making multiple offers a week, that will lead to a more consistent pipeline that can be scaled into a full-time job if you choose to.

MartelTurnkey buys houses and tests out the teams on the ground with our own funds and portfolio before letting out clients go through and use those teams on the ground. My team and I have calls with these boots on the ground teams as well as our clients to gauge how much success they’re having and where we might need to adjust and grow. As to your point about first year hurdles; yes it is important to keep in mind that property ownership is really a long-term game. Flipping of course can alleviate some of those concerns, but long-term wealth creation for most people will be done through long-term property ownership (some of our students at FlipSystem who have had success flipping are now using those profits to roll over into long-term rentals as well so they can benefit from some of the tax benefits and appreciation of property ownership).

A collection of 3 properties, especially 2 in the Bay Area (I’m assuming those are definitely not cheap), is an amazing start to a portfolio! Much like flipping or any other strategy, out of state investing has pros and cons, and is not a good fit for everyone. Personally I would rather spend time finding more deals, sourcing financing, and building a solid team, than I would going to physically check on my properties myself and deal with potential maintenance issues. Some of our students have discovered that they would agree with you in that they like to physically touch, see, and feel their investment, and are ok with owning just a couple of units. Other students that have scaled their portfolios quite a bit have learned to let their team handle the day to day hurdles of portfolio management (you still need to keep them accountable of course), so they can focus on some of the more growth focused tasks. Regardless of your strategy, I’m glad to hear you are invested into several properties, and hope you can continue to growth that portfolio whether it is in or out of state. Please reach out directly if I can help you further.

Quote from @Sean Lemon:

Looking for some first hand experience about this program. As someone who works long hours and shift work, I love the idea of someone else vetting the deals for me. The hardest part for me is finding the time to locate and analyze deals while working my “9-5” and trying to be a present husband and father. Was looking for some honest reviews from anyone who’s bought in to this system. I understand there is a 15k initiation fee and $200 monthly. That doesn’t bother me. It’s worth it if they’re actually finding, sending me deals, introducing me to lenders and contractors. I see where it could save me years of experience. Thanks everyone.

Hey Sean, Antoine here (the owner of FlipSystem and MartelTurnkey). I know your original question was posted over 6 months ago, and I hope you were able to start/grow your real estate portfolio during that time. I wanted to take a minute to let you know a little bit more about how our system may be a good fit for you (admittedly we are not the right fit for everybody—so many different ways for investors to make money in this industry).

You mentioned that you love the idea of someone vetting deals for you, as you are restricted on time. The majority of deals our students close on are ones that our team originally vetted and then set to the student through our portal. Our full-time acquisition team goes through every on-market property that comes available in our markets and only sends the ones that when preliminarily analyzed make sense for our system, so that you are not spending hours going through hundreds of properties a week that would never meet the criteria needed to successfully micro flip (like I discussed on my recent Bigger Pocket episode). We then set you up with a team on the ground (consisting of an agent, project manager, general contractor, and property manager) who you will leverage to verify or change our initial numbers as needed; they have hyper-local and real-time knowledge that is invaluable to reducing your required input time and reducing your risk. Our internal team is there to help you review rehab bids, inspection reports, analyze different exit strategies based on your updated numbers throughout the project, and help you work with different lenders and insurance agents that we refer you to.

You hit the nail on the head with the value we are trying to provide; a fee in exchange for saving an investor potentially years of headaches and lost opportunity going through team after team until they find the right fit. Our teams have collectively helped us complete over 650 flips at MartelTurnkey, so they are well versed in exactly what we are trying to accomplish with our students. I personally do not have a wife or kids yet, but I appreciate your desire to place time with them as your greatest goal. If you are interested in hearing more about how FlipSystem might be able to help you achieve that goal, please feel free to reach out to me directly.