All Forum Posts by: Sabrina Brown

I paid $1,500 for Cameron's I-Flip program, which was introduced to me by Robyn Thompson. I checked 10 properties in my area and did drive by's . All of them seemed to be vacant with one being a FSBO and one being rehabbed. Calling the numbers he listed in the leads, out of the 10, only 2 had voicemails, some were faxes, some did not have VM set up, and the rest did not have a valid number. When I purchased the program, I was told that the mailings would be free, however, I paid $168 for it and several cards came back with duplicate addresses and with matching addresses that were actually omitted from my mailing campaign. Since the mailing campaign through his program didn't work I was contacted by Brittaney and she handled the mailings herself. She had to manually add the mailing addresses due to the program glitch. I questioned this because the program was sold to me as a solid deal flow but she didn't respond to it. It made me think that the program was fairly new and they hadn't worked out the kinks. Throughout the entire program I noticed flaws. For example: If you ran a query for vacant properties, it gave you certain information on the screen but once you pushed it to the "save leads" screen, it omitted that information and you had to go through it manually one by one. There is a limitation of 1,000 leads/month to download to Excel, which wasn't mentioned before I bought the program. I was not aware that I had to "manually" find bird dogs in order for someone to check out the deals, Cameron said that his websites would find them for me. I set up 5 websites from his program and so far not one email or one lead coming from it. He omitted the marketing effort on my part when he sold the program.

I receive about 2-3 emails daily from his company to upsell me on other products or services he provides that should have been included in the program he sold.  I did call him on one of the emails which stated that he was looking for partners and he would train.  When I called, I spoke with a John who was very "salesy".  I found out that they wanted me to put $12,000 on my credit cards to pay for the mentoring program and then they would take 50% of each of my deals.  First of all, if I wanted a partner, I wouldn't have to put money up and secondly, if I find deals, I am going to keep the majority of it myself.  John kept saying that I should speak with Brad and Chad in their office to explain further.  I told him that I can only speak in the evening, yet, John kept calling me during the day leaving me a message to call back.  When I called back in the evening, the number returned a busy signal without being able to leave a message.  I tried several times.  This smells fishy to me like any other guru.  What stuck in my mind was when John said that "they are a data company"!  That was all I needed to hear as confirmation.  

To this day, I am still testing out the leads with my investor partners nationwide.  I like the fact that I can get vacant data from any part of the US.  However, one still has to follow through on the calls, emails, or mailing campaigns to find out if the properties are even up for sale.  Cameron makes it all sound too easy in his promotion to get you to sign up but one still has to put in all efforts to get a deal.  Hopefully, with a bit of luck I can find a seller, and when I do, that it is a viable deal for investment.

Has anyone done business with this company or Randy King, Matt King, or Andrea Trout?  I have been in a trust deed fix n flip deal since 2013 with them and it has been mismanaged from the beginning.  Now that the property finally sold last month, I haven't seen any of my invested capital.  I have heard from others that they have lost money through this group as well.  Would like to hear if they are legitimate and what I should/could do in order to get my investment back.

I have to emphasize one thing:  Being an out of state investor or being local.  As an out of state investor, you WILL get ripped off in the Memphis market paying 30-50% more on every transaction and where the management company counts on emergencies due to their negligence in monitoring tenants, properties, repairs, etc.  Local investors told me that there are NO management company they would trust, they basically use their own teams with their own oversight.  Anybody who is local will sugar coat everything just to get your money.  It cost me my life savings and others their jobs due to bankruptcies caused by owning Memphis properties through TK providers.  And we all did our research, visited the area, checked with lenders, etc.  They are all in it together and never in your best interest!  Trust me on that!

If you are still not convinced, ask yourself why the local TK providers search for out of state investors when they could just list on the local MLS! Yes, because they can rip off out of state investors making you pay 30-50% above market value!

With half the city of Memphis owned by out of state investors it also adds to more crime.  Tenants know this, TK providers know this, nobody cares much about your property/ies because after all, you live out of state.  By the time you find out in how bad shape your property is, it's already costing you tens of thousands of dollars wiping out anything you hoped to gain and more!

@Shannon Allaire

I currently don't have property contracts for sale.  The recent properties I looked at didn't make sense for investors.  As far as my value add concerns, at the moment and until I have property contracts for sale, I can assist looking at the information provided by others and give honest feedback to the best of my knowledge and capabilities.  I have already helped several investors by pointing out wrong information on datasheets they were given by TK providers.  As I have continued doing my research and have gotten more involved in the Memphis market, I am seeing more and more challenges with this market.  TK providers buy back properties from these failed out of state ventures at below market value and then sell them to newer out of state investors at above market values, which skews the market values on both ends.  Personally, I would not recommend anybody to invest in Memphis unless they know the market real well and DO NOT deal with TK providers.  Otherwise, there is a high chance that one would get in at too high of a purchase price that they can hardly ever recoup down the road.  

On another note, I have been told by a couple of long term local investors here that "one would need to stick with buy and hold properties for at least 10 years".  I find this statement a bit misleading because if a property generates large losses in multiple years, hanging on to a property even longer would just not make sense.  You may just want to cut your losses as soon as possible rather than continue pouring more and more cash into a property that you will never recoup.  And the longer one holds on to such property, the higher the chance you will incur additional capital expenditures (i.e. new HVAC, new water heater, etc) that, again, won't get you to recoup any of your losses no matter how much you might increase your rents.  And I can substantiate that from my own experience.  

@Alex Craig

Thank you for providing the details of full disclosure.  One of the biggest challenges I have found is to get correct market value on properties.  If one takes the last 90 days of sold properties within a small radius, it will include properties that are purchased on an as-is basis with lots of rehabs, hence at a much lower price, and properties that are sold at higher than market value to out of state investors, as well as include retail and investment properties.  As I am now local, I have seen the difference street for street, or even "TK house" vs. owner occupied, which changes the value door to door.   Anybody doing research on the internet will not know the difference, including lenders.  When it comes to an exit strategy, which every investor should have prior to purchasing, they will not get the true picture.  I found many TK provider properties that sell way above market value.  These buyers are usually out of state investors paying cash and not requiring an appraisal because there is no lender.  I think this is the type of investor that TK providers are targeting...  What are your (or anybody's) thoughts to this?

@Navid Sadighi

Keep in mind that you will be paying a minimum of 30-50% more by going with a TK provider, which will be a profit that could go into your own pocket.  They thrive on new investors, especially out of state investors and CA is one of the biggest targets for them (ask me how I know this!).

There are other ways to get around:

For a little bit of upfront investment getting to know the market and seeing how comfortable you may feel, I would suggest to fly in and take a look at properties. You can connect with other local and trusted real estate investors and realtors to find you several you can look at.  Then make the offer directly to the seller with an inspection as contingency.  Once accepted, hire a property inspector.  You can ask them for referrals of handymen and/or contractors, if needed.  Find out if one of these handymen would be willing to check on your property monthly for a small fee and send you pictures etc.   There are rental companies you can use online that will find you tenants, do background checks, etc.  Have tenants send the rent checks to you directly or set them up for online payments. 

You get the picture here.  It is not easier but it will protect your money/investment.  Nobody else will do a better job than yourself.  I literally thought that I would be a passive investor hiring TK providers and it turned out that it sucked away all of the little bit of free time I had working a full time job and plus hours.  In the end, I lost money anyway.  

By the way, I just answered a private message of an investor who provided me with the address and I found many discrepancies as to what the TK provider stated in their offering summary.  Of course, they were all NOT in the benefit of the potential investor (wrong number of bedrooms/bathrooms, no comps available in that area but made up a property value that was inflated by $26K, and so on....).  Just too many red flags that are now so clear to me after having gone through several of these.   I hope this helps a bit!

@Account Closed

This is the preview of the movie until it is released :-)  

To answer your question, yes, I have considered selling the houses to tenant buyers via lease to purchase options.  One didn't follow through and moved out after 1 year, another abandoned the property causing a vandalism, another one stopped paying.  Don't get me wrong, I still had the headaches during that time.  In theory it all sounds great but in reality, it is an entirely different story.  Here in Memphis, I would still need to hire someone to check on my property during this time.  The title will still be under your name until they have become the legal owners at the end of the term of the purchase option, and they can still trash your house, even though it states that they are responsible for the upkeep of the house.   The down payments were $3,000 to $5,000 in my case so maybe that was an indication that if they don't have the $10k-$25k, they can't afford the house.  My problems are "solved" in such way that my properties are sold now (with huge losses and insurance claims).  Each and every situation is different but I relied on TK providers and management properties since I lived out of state.  I could have prevented most issues by living where I owned these properties, except it is very unlikely getting rental properties in CA where numbers would make any sense.  Now that I live in Memphis, I could oversee my own properties and chosen better tenants on my own rather than relying on property management companies.  

@Account Closed

Glad you had the chance to check everything out by driving through areas, getting information from TK providers, and researching online but it is not the same as actually living here (ask me how I know this!).  I did the same as you in 2010.  Real estate is all about the exit strategy.  I predicted back in 2010 that I would hold onto my properties for a long time "since it's all about the cash flow" but the reality was different for me having to deal with excessive repairs, non-paying tenants (that TK providers didn't collect), rent-ready repairs and loss of further rent, entity maintenance, etc.  If at the end of the year you look at it, there were much higher expenses than you took in, it's hardly worth it.  And you may be doing well in the first few years but after about 7 years, you end up putting a lot of cash back into the properties for high ticket items including new HVAC, flooring, windows, etc. One will need a lot of reserves for it.  In hindsight, I wish I had never invested in literally any of my rental properties (I owned in other states, too) and I would have a pretty big fat bank account.  If there is anything else, like a secret :-), please let us know!

@John P.

I would not be either.  What I have been figuring out with other trustworthy and successful investors here in Memphis is how to help other out of state investors so they will get a good deal that makes sense just as if they were local people.  If they have a property in mind, we can go look at it, be their second set of eyes, tell them about the area, pros/cons, talk about the investor's goals and help them meet their goals based on the "real" current market.

I don't wish anybody to go through what happened to me.  Thankfully, I have always been able to pull myself back up but others may not have the willpower or energy, especially when one loses a lot of money.  If I had known back then what I know now, and had I known the great people I know now, I would have definitely made money.  However, I would have ONLY made money WITHOUT TK Providers!  I am happy for those that say that they have made money WITH TK Providers but if they knew how much they overpay for often less than standard services, they may change their minds, too.  

@Micah Mcarthur

Glad to see someone like you listening to your gut feeling! The model for an out of state investor will NOT work (unless you have family near the property you can 100% trust). If there is a profit for TK providers to sell, they will just do so on the MLS. Why need an OOS investor? Because they can then make another 30%+ on the deal and other transactions that they can get their hands on, including management, repairs, evictions, rent ready expenses, and so on...

If you want to make it work, buy from a distressed owner in YOUR area, fix up with your contractors/handymen, sell or rent out to verified tenants, then check on your tenants as many times as you can, and so on...

You may want to check out my long thread at https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/311-buying-se...

I hope this thread helps you get some more info about the concept.  As an OOS investor from CA (among so many others), I lost a huge chunk of money.  I have gone through the pains, tried multiple "trusted" companies, and still got screwed over.  Now that I live here in Memphis, I am getting the real scoop!  I have learned from my mistakes and the trust I put into people that I signed contracts with (that had no meaning by law if you can't collect from them to recoup your lost funds).  

Keep up your mindset and keep questioning EVERYTHING like you did here!