All Forum Posts by: Jim Keller

@DL Martin I didn't know you were familiar with that property. Yes, when I bought it, it was literally inhabitated with drug dealers and prostitutes so there was a lot of $$$ spent on legal fees to evict.

Funny you mention shootings because when I bought it, one of the hallway windows did in fact have a bullet hole.

One thing we did get done there was getting very involved with the Riverside police station and letting them know that our intent was to clean the area up, in fact we went as far as getting the property certified as a Safe Housing by the city of Riverside and had a police officer assigned to our building. We were able to get before and after 911 call records and it was nice to see the dramatic decrease.

For "rougher" tenants, the concrete walls definitely make a big difference.

Mark,

I'm late entering the Riverside market, but have done very well on flips over the last 18 months. I have 4 going right now and have completed another 10 projects from Moreno Valley to OC. I see more than anything your timing could not have been better, can you talk about the economic factors that made this such an easy decision to jump in and take on this huge deal. I understand you had the cash but what we're some of the key things that pushed you to spend the money on this deal.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Matt R.:

@Account Closed

@Jim Keller Nice score! What city was that craigslister in?

@Israel Tabi Welcome to BP! That explains the luxury condos vs multis. I saw IMT take a retail mini mall tear down/infill and develope to multis recently. I guess there are ways around the restrictions but that stuff is out of my league as is. Thanks!

Matt

It was in a sleepy old section of Riverside North of the Riverside airport. The sellers ad said he wanted $150,000 in gold bullion or coins. We agreed on $158,000 and he let me pay cash.

1 Vote

A few weeks ago after seeing more and more NOD's and NOS properties we had tracked years ago reappear on Property Radar I made a commitment to get to the bottom of it. Sean O'Toole from property radar graciously gave me some good ideas on how to fine tune his web site to find old modifications and low and behold we have a we deal today. I love sharing my success with the bigger pockets community, I hope others feel the same.

On to our new deal.... simply put, the home owner was NOD and NOS 5 years ago and Modified then. You can see the old assignment adding all the back payments and fee's to their loan balance on property radar. Five years pass and they still didn't keep up, and fall back behind again. I sew the new NOS and knock on their door, but a law office got to them first. I didn't give up, I asked to see the paperwork and that's where they made their mistake. I see bad paperwork, and knew we could knock the law office off this deal. I gave the seller a few gems to share with the law office and they agreed to let the deal go for a payment of $500.00 "I can't believe I was ever intimidated by a Lawyer".

I know see how the loan modification scheme the banks gave home owners will be a huge landslide of new business for us investors. I have heard as much as 50% of NOS's in Southern California have some sort of equity position. I know for our company we will have an outsourced virtual assistant type company compile a steady list of "likely" second time loan mod defaulters. These list will be distributed to our field "bird Dogs" and we hope to have many scheduled purchase appointments in the up coming months.

I just can't say it enough.... "I love this business" Our seller today was getting ripped off by the law office and the affiliate real estate office owned by all the same crooks. they even were charging her a 10% real estate commission. I was able to net her an extra $25,000 on her net proceeds. She was in tears, we did the right thing and I know we will get referrals from it. The referrals may be for me to buy out right and rent or flip. Some of the referrals will be to my real estate agents that I work with, ether way the seller gets more money and I get more deals.

3 Votes

Originally posted by @Audrey H.:

Good morning everyone,

I would like to introduce myself: My name is Audrey, and I am looking to become a property developer in Southern California. Bigger Pockets has been an incredible resource - I'm looking forward to learning more from our seasoned professionals and network.

Cheers,

Audrey

Hi Audrey,

Great hearing from you, Bigger Pockets has been huge in the development of my company. Great people all over the site, business people that seem to cut to the quick when it comes to most of my questions. I'm in the Corona/Riverside area but my work takes me from South LA to Orange County Riverside and San Bernardino County's

I welcome you to contact me for any help I can give..... good luck

1 Vote

I have lived here in Southern California all my 51 years. I'm amazed at just what is available out there, We resently closed on a simple 3 bed 2 bath 1350 Sq ft flip home built in1959 on a 7500 Sq ft lot for under 160,000 then put 40,000 into it and have it under contract for 298,500. By the way I found this deal on Craigslist, just an everyday thing here in Southern California over $75,000 looking for someone to reach down and pick it up. Thank god it was me......

I won't go on and on about gentrification or huge growth markets or massive profit potential I just know that the Silicon Valley will replicate it's self with electic cars or desalination technology or who knows what in some other areas of our state and values will sky rocket again and again and again...... it's happened 6 times in my lifetime, boom and bust are part of the California real estate reality and I love it.

London, Spain, China, Australia, or any other destinations are a air bnb away and with rents for most 2br 2 bath condos on the west side of LA pushing 4,000 a month it doesn't take that many of them to add up to some good days abroad.

2 Votes

2 from agent

3 from owners

I have a team of bird dogs and call 10 agents per day looking for the great white whale ..... I mean deal.

I have been working on getting a vurtual assistant to provide my team with hand picked "Glenn Gary" type leads to get the team out working and fill in the rest with our regular lead source. Our company believes that activity breads activity.

2 Votes

His commission is his commission..... with that said find more deals and do them yourself. My first 2 deals were financed using a very expensive equity share type financing scheme. After selling the second one I just don't need that anymore. He still calls me by the way, maybe one day I will need his services again. This time it will be on more favorable terms.

You may want to think about conducting your business more seperatly. In my market Southern California a listing agent would take a listing side for 2% and be happy. I'm very conscious of all the money each deal generates. A win win win is always what I want, but with that said no one is garrenteed anything in our business.

hope this helps

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Jim Stoffey:

Hi all,

I'm a long-time lurker/listener, but this is my first post in the forums. After attending an awesome BP meetup in Philadelphia (hosted by @Troy S.) some red flags have come up regarding the structure we're looking to use to fund our first flip.

My partner, @Phil Sabella, and I have connected with a financier/partner who does JV's. It's set up as follows ('We' being Phil and I, 'They' being the financing company):

We find the deal and we use our finances to find the deal.
- We can find the deal however we'd like. MLS, direct mail, through a wholesaler, etc.
- The property can be located in PA or NJ, they do not care.
We have to send them a detailed comp report
We have to have our GC's come out for bids (on our dollar)
We have to have our inspector come out (on our dollar)
We have to get the property under contract with a 10 day inspection period before we can show it to them or have their inspector come out
The contract has to be assignable
$50,000 is the profit they ask us to shoot for
6-8 week rehab time, no structural issues

Once we find a property and get it under contract, we must immediately pay $795 for their inspector to come out, send them our comp report and our GC estimates. They will verify what we send, and if they agree, we assign the contract to their company & we enter a JV agreement with them agreeing to split the profit 60% us, 40% them or 50/50 depending on the deal. They'll then put up 100% of costs including selling/staging and we will manage the entire project from start to finish.

At first I thought it sounded too good to be true. But I started to come around when I realized this is a great way for their company to get deals done without lifting a finger, and we pay for their inspection. Limited risk for them, limited risk for us. They also rehab houses on their own, so if we screw up they come in and take the deal over and complete the project themselves. If the deal is successful, they also offer hard money and encourage that for the next project. I think this is a great way to set up a business, actually, and am impressed with the way they do things, if we're not being baited.

So, has anyone had success using a structure like this? Is there anything we need to look out for? My *biggest* concern is the $795 'commitment fee'. There is nothing stopping them from saying "no" to five properties, pocketing the fees, end of story.

I'd love to hear horror stories as well as success stories with this strategy. Any advice would be fantastic!

Jim,

Save your money 20% usually and do this deal on your own....... Barrow it from your mom, uncle, cousin, grandpa, or the lady nextdoor. If the deal is that good you will have no problem getting it done. My father in law a 7th grade drop out self made millionaire used to say "KISS" keep it simple stupid..... he died 3 years ago I sure miss him. He would give you the same advise I just gave.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Mark Cruse:

@Steve Babiak I have to check back with her. The problem was she borrowed and scrounged up as much as she could and they still said she was short because of the fees. I think she was 2k short. She pretty much felt alone and wanted to see if there was specialized help to present her with options. I told her to be weary of people asking for a bunch of money up front but that's about the extent of my knowledge on the subject. Thanks for the info.

Mark

This is where you come in....."THE INVESTOR' I have hundreds of pre-foreclosure clients i followup with on a monthly basis. Just this weekend one of them "a Anaheim, Ca Couple" finally decided to stop the insanity and start the short sale process with us. My hand chosen Realtor and I went out to their home and I offered to buy the home as long as they cooperated with the agent I referred them to. Today i have 22 such contracts, to be far a large percentage of them go away because the bank wants to much for them. But the ones that don't i buy and keep or fix and flip.

Oh by the way this couple have been fighting to keep this home for 8 years...... take it from me the best thing that ever happen to your friend is not getting a loan modification. I have read hundreds of them and never seen one that didn't dig the borrower in deeper and hurt them even more in the end. "these clients sold her wedding ring to get in to last mod 3 yrs ago and still lost the home" and they are divorcing now. The people on this site aren't cold or uncaring, we have just seen the worst that's out there. No home is worth as many tiers as i have seen. After she signed the listing she cried and said she had not felt that good in years..... I love this job!!!

Good Luck

2 Votes

Originally posted by @Khaled Seirafi:

@Jim Keller

Very impressive! I keep thinking that in order to get into rehabbing, I'm going to have to look at properties out of state. But I haven't searched yet. This is just based on what everyone says. What areas have you been rehabbing in?

I have deals in Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino County's just keep looking....... deals are like needles in hay stacks, your going to have to move a lot of hay to find a needle.

0 Votes

All Forum Posts by: Jim Keller

Jim Keller has started 18 posts and replied 338 times.

Post: 30 month Multifamily Flip in Riverside CA.

Post: The changing face of Los Angeles - Gentrification areas

Post: First contract from new marketing efforts !!

Post: New member from Southern California

Post: The changing face of Los Angeles - Gentrification areas

Post: How are YOU finding deals?

Post: Partnership Commission Splits

Post: Joint Venture - Is this a Scam?

Post: Forclosure Prevention

Post: Joining local REIA chapter