All Forum Posts by: Christopher Thompson

@Brenda Watkins I bought a turn key place a couple of years ago and it has turned out amazingly well for me.  I did a lot of my own due diligence (called a local unaffiliated realtor to ask for their opinion) and made sure I bought in a low crime, good school neighborhood -- exactly what I would do for a primary residence.  There are never shortages of people who want to be in good school districts and areas of low crime.  There are a ton of rentals in memphis, with many in crime-ridden neighborhoods with poor schools.  The key is not to buy in those areas - or else you could end up like @Jackson Long 's friend.  Furthermore, if you ever wanted to sell the property earlier than you expect (like me right now due to some big life changes), it's a lot easier selling a place in a nice neighborhood than a poor one.

That said, I bought a turnkey for 77k and it's renting for $875/month.  

My first renter lasted for the entire 2 years lease (as expected).  When the renter moved out, my property management team spruced it up and signed my second renter for another 2 year lease for more money.

It sounds like your friends (@Jackson Long ) are not taking the right approach, were misled, or just have bad luck.

@Zachary Sexton good call.  It's not worth jumping into a bad deal and dealing with the anxiety and stress that it would cause.  With the number of condos etc. coming online in east austin (and all over austin), it can drastically affect your rental income in the future and send you more in the negative...and who knows what the impact may be from the next recession.  I'd make sure your numbers work and you have a decent cushion in case.

I've personally been focusing on single family . Every once and a while I still see a deal or two that pops up on MLS -- where the numbers work for a great flip. Just be on top of it and know the area in and out. As you know, one block/street over can have a huge impact on price. I would try to capitalize in those areas. If you know the area as well as you should when you're investing, you can also buy without a realtor and use it to try to negotiate further reductions in the price of the house by 3% (what would be buyers agent commission). It can have a decent impact on your future profits, and/or free up some cash flow for the flip.

My wife and I just did a year and a half single family flip in the 04.  I knew our area of the 04 extremely extremely well and have been following sales/the market for a long time.  I'm confident I know our area better than 99%+ of the realtors out here so I listed the house myself and marketed myself .  Sure enough we sold without a realtor (buyer also had no realtor as well).  It was very easy and saved us ~35k in commission fees.  Try to be creative in this market.

@Ron Quinn  I'd love to hear more as I was thinking of investing in the KC market

@Austin Pitts Can you also add me to your buyers list in Austin

[email protected]

@Philip Hy I too am closing on a place at the end of March (~ 60 days from signing the contract) due to renovations not being complete so I'll be right there with you as the BP guinea pig

@Chris Thomas Did you end up buying something from Spartan?  If so, what's your experience?

Are any other BP users out there that bought a Spartan TK > 2 years ago?  Would love to hear your experience with them.

Thanks @Dean H., appreciate your perspective/insight.  I'm a turn-key investor that's purchased a place in Memphis and Birmingham.  One of my main concerns about the Memphis market has to do with the abundance of turnkey companies there.  I could be wrong, but my gut says we're going to be at a point soon where there's too much of a supply of these flipped homes to rent.  I'm looking to other markets for future properties in order to diversify my risk a little, even if it may not get the biggest yield currently.

Thanks @Alexander Price.  This is very helpful as I'm looking at a few properties from them

Chris

@Alexander Price  Being about 8 months post close, what are your thoughts so far on rent to reward?

Thanks @Jacob Pereira,  @Kris Wong , @Caroling Lee , @Mark Seale , @Dan Burstain , @Chris Harkins , @Aaron Gordy

This is all immensely helpful and I will more than likely be reaching out to some of you personally as I check out these areas