All Forum Posts by: Chris Clothier

 I was my pleasure Ken.  I thought you guys had a great group and a couple of really good investors heading that group up.  So glad to hear that you are getting started and trying to make some waves!

Take care - 

@Jay Hinrichs - I don't know the legality of it, but I sure know that TREC is not an organization to mess with.  That is one organization that you want to make sure whatever you are doing is within the rules.

 Welcome to Biggerpockets.com Jack!  It is a great place - especially for new investors - to get information, direction and possibly even mentorship.  Whatever you decide to do, please be patient.  You do not have to be in a hurry.  That is a surefire way to lose money.  You have an incredible opportunity so be careful, be patient and take some time to get advice from multiple different people.  The Boston area has several real estate investment groups that you could start to become familiar with.  There are a lot of resources you can turn to and many you will find right here on BP.

My advice is to just please go slow.  Ask lots of questions and connect with others here on BP.  You will begin to learn and find out that you do not know what you do not know....that in itself may possibly help you to preserve your capital first and foremost and then develop a good plan to build on that capital.

Best of luck to you as you get started.

 Congratulations Ken!  Best of luck as you keep going and hopefully your experience is exactly what you expected.  Keep us abreast of how quickly you are able to refinance and repeat!  That is almost always the biggest challenge but absolutely doable.  Many investors have used your strategy and at some point they alter that strategy to start accelerated buy down rather than refi.  It is a very powerful way of leveraging your money and building a powerful portfolio.  I'm sure you are going to do great!

Jay,

Not sure how common it is in Dallas, but it does happen. We buy from wholesalers every week. The price they offer works for us so we buy and then find out they make ridiculous mark-up. Thinking about that aspect beyond a few seconds is wasted time because we were happy with the price. When we find out it was on the MLS and they made a ridiculous mark-up AND closed with our money....that makes doing business twice a tough pill to swallow.

Congratulations on your first closing @Alex SImon.  Best of luck and sincerely hope you have a great experience.  Keep us abreast of how it goes and try to stay cool over there!

@Jim Brozny , @Emmett R. McCarthy - Thank you for the responses.  I will pass both on.

Anyone else have feedback or have suggestions for additional Chicago property management companies?

To all the Chicago BPers on here or even absentee owners who use Chicago area Property Management.

I have been in Chicago for a couple of days at some real estate meetings and talking about property management and I am getting inundated with requests for good property management in Chicago.

Some of the investors live in Chicago and others are from out of town, but at least two dozen investors have asked me for advice on this topic.  I told them all that I would get some suggestions and get back to them.

Anyone have suggestions for quality property managers here in the city or the surrounding areas?  Just give me a list.  They all understand the questions they need to ask and the fact that they need to do their own due diligence, so just give me some recommendations and companies for them to get started.

I asked for some restaurant recommendations two days ago and Chicago investors were like rockstars giving me some great advice.  Hopefully you can come through on this one for me this morning!

Welcome to BIggerPockets @Ricky De Castro!  What you have found in BP is a great resource and you are starting off well.. Good job posting questions like this one.  If you have any questions about navigating the site or how to get things done on BP be sure to post them.  Tons of really good people on here to help.

As for your question, start by asking to speak to some of their clients.  Whomever they share with you, will most likely give some really nice reviews and everything they say may be true.  A couple of hints on what to ask:

How long have they been investing with the company?

How many properties do they own?

Who does the management?  Are they a third party hired by the TK company to provide service?  (that can raise anxiety for you later on)

What happens when there are issues?  Does the TK company stay involved and try to help?

Those are just a few basic questions that have nothing to do with returns or numbers and everything to do with how you are going to be treated.

One more tip - if the customers they give you all give really good testimonials, call the company back and ask for a customer who has had issues.  Someone who may not have had the perfect experience.  Tell them you want to hear how they handle problems for their clients.

If they cannot locate someone who has not had a perfect experience, then I would suggest you keep looking for another company.  

Best of luck to you Ricky as you get started and again, welcome to BP!

Awesome and thanks for responding.  I am out by O'Hare airport for a couple of nights, but with Uber would have no problem checking something out that is not near here.