All Forum Posts by: Sabrina Brown

@Jay Hinrichs 

Hi Jay, how are you?  I still love living in Memphis, even with all its challenges of higher than ever crimes.  It's not easy going out there in public without always looking around and being prepared to defend.  I have been following the trends in my neighborhood and am more educated about how things work here in Memphis...and it doesn't look too great when looking at current "leadership".  They all sound very nice and caring but when it comes down to it, we are getting the worse end of the stick and for the long term.  I am hoping to get involved soon to help for the betterment of communities.  I have some ideas and insights that I will share if and when they can possibly be implemented.  It's time for major cleanups and I am ready!

Hi James, thank you for checking in.  Time does indeed fly.  My initial setback was getting screwed over by a contractor that I was able to get convicted and who is still serving time (he is due to serve more time in AR and MS after this term since he's robbed hundreds of people).  I was ready to buy all in cash last year but then covid hit.  Prices have since risen, in some areas pretty nicely for those that want to sell, but at the same time, some owners have become greedy and are asking for full retail value on their fixer uppers.  A few other investment properties I reviewed investors/wholesalers are doing about the exact same thing, not leaving enough, or any, room to make a small profit after putting up rehab costs of $50K+ per property.  

From what I interpreted from Mayor Strickland's State of The City speech just recently, larger private and commercial investors are taking over certain neighborhoods.  This will most likely lead to more poverty, crime, and less properties available to us small business owners who are just trying to make a small living.  I hope hedge funds that have not provided any value to this city, or other cities for that matter, will no longer be allowed to invest in the future.  One of the biggest hedge fund company along with their worst rated management company in town have over 3,000 code violations that the city should not allow doing any business any longer but they don't care.   My business efforts have been halted because of this.  I don't think I will ever own rental properties again, only fixer uppers, and mostly doing it on my own, to cut out the frauds and rip offs.  My intent is only to allow decent individuals to get a comfortable and nice home while I get paid for the work I do to make it happen.  

@Jay Hinrichs

The certification process feels like a colonoscopy, intense FBI investigation, IRS audit, and mental evaluation combined but I know that if I work with other WOB I don't have to check into their legitimacy.  Did you know that Memphis is the #1 city in the US for WOB????  That's probably the only #1 we are going to have but with all of the competition I had no choice to go that route.  I can do whatever I want and need to do with my business, whether I utilize the WOB or do private contracts.  I like that I am not limited and in fact it opens up more avenues than I otherwise could given that I don't have a spouse partner or anybody else in my business.  

@Jay Hinrichs

Thank you so much, Jay.  I absolutely LOVE living here in Memphis.  The last/my first two years were a bit tough to get my feet off the ground, especially since I was still facing the after effects of being scammed by the Memphis locals for so long.  In the meanwhile, I have indicted one career criminal who I was going to do business with but found out immediately after arriving that it wasn't going to happen for me to go to join bad guys.  When I found out that he had scammed so many other investors and locals with little money, I knew I needed to make the first step.  Several others have then piggybacked on my case and with that, we got him put in jail.  Unfortunately, out of a 10 year sentence he may only serve 2 years, and then maybe another 3 months in MS where he was on probation.  He also has been convicted in AR previously, so not sure what's going to happen there.  Going through this process took a big junk out of my time to focus on building my business.  Then I had to get the house in order that was supposed to be fully fixed up for sale that I then decided to move into.  Flaky contractors slowed down that process, again taking time away from me building my business.  I then made the decision to just "breathe" and work for a large corporation in Memphis on a project basis for a year to save up some money and get to know the community.  They were going to put me on another project last November but I declined so I could finally focus on the 2nd step of the full rehab of the property.  Thought it would only take a month but turned into two months of working 7 days a week, which then literally canceled my Christmas and New Years.  During that time though, I started applying for a certification as minority women-owned business and hope it will wrap up soon.  My goal is to revitalize neighborhoods to allow locals to buy properties at adequate, not inflated, market values and be independent, with reducing crime in mind.  This involves meeting with city and county personnel to find out what's available and how to get a hold of these blight properties.  Many in my large local investor network are looking forward to fixing up properties but there seems to be a shortage of availability in their circles.  I hope that I will be able to provide them with opportunities to jump on board with me with the promise to help LOCALS ONLY.  After having gone through the pains of being and out of state investor and now living here in Memphis, I saw and learned from locals enough to know that in order to reduce crime we need to utilize our local community members.  Too many large corporations and foreigners have purchased our properties and leave us with not only huge code violations and neglect, but attract crime and other scam companies taking advantage.  Honestly, I am tired of it and I need to inform officials so we can reverse the negative trend.  I definitely have my work cut out for me but I realized that I can't move forward in business unless I can incorporate my passion to help locals.  Memphis is just small and large enough to be heard and make a difference.  Please keep your fingers crossed that this time I am able to go stronger and better because I don't know how many more times I can start over again. :-)

Update on one of the properties:

I have rehabbed one of the properties that turnkey providers sold me and that were "managed" by several of the local known larger companies.  These companies performed repairs at the property before at a high cost to me but either the work was never performed or the quality of the work was so poor that I had to reinvest in the same work at an even higher cost because these companies would drill holes into brick or walls that were not necessary causing more damage, including drafts and room for bugs to come into the house.  I obtained three quotes from licensed electricians that were certified by BBB and within minutes they all came to the conclusion that the prior electrical work was not performed up to codes (they found a minimum of 5 code violations in the area of the electrical meter alone).  These prior companies should not even be in business for one, that they are often not licensed, perform sloppy work gouging customers with high prices, and they are taking advantage of out of state investors knowing that the investors wouldn't know because they are far away.  I only found out because I now live in Memphis and in one of the investment homes that I had to fully rehab from scratch again - three times previously from poor management and bad tenants with multiple evictions these management companies didn't do anything about to prevent.

This proves once again that most of the turnkey providers are not in the business to help the investor, they are in the business to prey on out of state investors because their business concept would not sustain locally.  If it did, they would be advertising locally at investment market values, not 30-50% above, adding to the high crime rate in Memphis and code violations.  

I don't think there is an etiquette for calling times or days as long as it's not in the middle of the night.  Here in Memphis people either work during the day, so they can be best reached after 5PM at home, or they are available on weekends but maybe not Sunday mornings when they are at church.  

I don't think I ever had a hang up from calling someone when I had a reason to call, i.e. "hi, I drove by your property the other day and wanted to know...." or "I saw your ad"...or "I am looking for properties to buy in your neighborhood and saw ...." . Since we both spoke on the phone the other day, I can't imagine someone hanging up with your kind voice and sincerity.  People pick up from that positive energy.  I don't think you have to worry, and if they hang up, you move on to the next, or write them a letter (most likely they have forgotten that it was you they hung up on anyway). :-)

@Bob Davidson

Thank you for sharing your experience.  It appears that the data comes from the USPS system of no mail delivery to those addresses in 90 days or more, they are then marked "vacant".  Do you think there is an easy way to access that data directly from USPS and if so, how much does it cost?  Would be curious to hear because I don't plan on paying another $1,500 or more when the year expires.  

I have not found anybody actually using the software to its full capacity and knowing whether it works and flows through like he claims.  With the little bit I have seen so far it is not flawless at all and I had to reenter info all over again (i.e. when it is pushed from the saved data or vacant house data feed to the follow up flow).

Hi Gloria,

I had a similar issue where I was trying to sell one property in my LLC and my LLC status showed inactive. When I called the TN Dept of Revenue (they surprisingly picked up right away) they said that I had not paid my minimum tax claimed on my TN tax return. I told them that I sent them a check and the date it cleared in my bank account. As I was on the phone, they verified that information and my LLC status immediately became active again. There was another incident a couple of years back where I also had to make a quick phone call and after talking to them, they cleared it up immediately. Since I moved from CA to TN I see that some of their departments are not up to par but once you talk to them they clear it up immediately. It's all about follow up but you do need to file a TN tax return annually, in case you haven't. I hope this helps and it was all you needed to do!

Sabrina

I unfortunately paid into their apprentice program with big bucks.  They were teaching about trust deed programs and the irrevocable trust they promote (for a small fee for a certificate of course) was prepared by one of their lawyers.  Because the signatures were prepared at a different time, there was never a full trust document that was then certified in full.  Some were as creative and wrapped another trust around it.  For example:  there are 4 investors in one irrevocable trust.  One investor wants out, so they bring in another investor by creating another trust on top of that one.  In the end, you have no clue who is in the irrevocable trust that is being entirely mismanaged by the trustee, you get no accounting, and if you get lucky receiving interest payments, you will get them 1-2 months late.

Many deals were promoted as 1st or 2nd trusts.  There were several contractors and real estate professionals present that would bring their own deals.  Problem is that they were just out to scam people.  Many lost most or all of their money.  There was some information in these classes but they were so rare that any of us would ever get to deal with, especially without having a securities license, that it had no value.  Their expensive classes were a waste of time and money.

I am still trying to get my funds from The Legacy Group Inc, located in Colorado Springs, that was supposed to be a 6 month fix n flip deal from 2013. Everything from the start went wrong. Rehab took them over 2 years. They supposedly hired a company to oversee the rehab, hence more money, but yet, the rehab project still went wrong and dragged out. Their excuse was always that the contractor didn't do this, or was working on another project and so on. They then hired a realtor to sell the property. They were late in posting it on the MLS so we missed a huge opportunity in the spring time. When the realtor finally put it on the MLS, they posted old pictures and with the status "foreclosure" , which was still from the time we got the property back via foreclosure. It took the realtor to post "professional" pictures about a month and by then, nobody cared to look at an old MLS listing. We ended up reducing the price by about $50,000 mid January 2018. Why we used a realtor to sell at a loss is mind boggling. None of us investors have received our funds back or an accounting of transactions, which they were to provide monthly. I asked for accounting in prior years and didn't get anything. The Legacy Group is run by Randy King, Matt King, and Andrea Trout. Sending emails doesn't lead to anything, they just simply ignore you, even though they were promoting to focus on providing "excellent customer service". It's all BS.

There were two other groups that The Bankers Code promoted and most of the deals went sour, too.  Back on another deal from 2013, I finally threatened one trustee because she committed securities fraud by lying to us and deceiving us investors, she paid back the capital only, but then was hired on as a mentor by The Bankers Code.  She had no prior experience!  All they promote is scammers, even though they keep saying that they want to do honest business, yet, they continued bringing on inexperienced and useless mentors.  

Why all of these self-called "gurus" get away with the securities commission and are not investigated by the FBI, is mind boggling to me.  I can name at least 10 investors I know personally that lost money in the deals among other gurus.  Only a small percentage of students actually become successful.  The only success the gurus have is by ripping people off the money they charge.  Charge each student "only" $1,000 but get 50 to attend and voila, you have just made yourself $50,000 in one weekend (most make more than $200,000 in one weekend).  Then add all of the coaching money they upsell you because you haven't been successful and they promise you by getting their one-on-one calls you will be because "they are guiding you along the way".  You see it out because you think that by the end of their personal coaching you have become an expert but you are far away from that because most of that information is not useful.  Better invest your money by doing it small on your own, or by learning from other investors for free.  

Airbnb seems to be the biggest thing now here in Memphis, but only certain areas (i.e. Midtown Memphis where hotels are scarce).  I have also listened to Robyn Thompson's introduction of Brian.  He made it sound very easy but right before the end of the webinar it was apparent to me that it does require a lot of effort from a superb management company or someone extremely reliable who is local (you?) to fulfill the Airbnb guests' needs right away in order to receive top ratings.  The property needs to be fully fixed up and often you might have to invest the cost of new furniture.  In the beginning of the webinar Brian states that it doesn't take any money out of pocket but at the end of the webinar he mentions that you only have to put up a "little bit of money" upfront for staging.  In my experience in real estate (I have tried many programs and lost a lot of money by trusting 3rd parties), all of them make everything sound so easy and purposely leave out difficult parts so that later on they can get you into their "mentoring programs" where you are still not moving forward because they take up most of your time doing "silly homework" with webinars, calls, etc.  instead of focusing on finding properties.  The best deals always come from doing it yourself with FREE advice from successful and trustworthy investors.  I believe that if you check out Airbnb's program, and speak to other Airbnb users, you might get more valuable information for free instead of paying someone else for it.  Would still love to hear about your successes or not with Airbnb, specifically Brian's program. Thank you.