All Forum Posts by: Tucker Cummings

@Scott Kim it certainly is. I'm sure in that area there are REI groups and meet ups though. I'd recommend going to them and networking like crazy to try to find somebody who can help you - a good agent, contractor and property manager to get you on your feet.

Well that's great! Good job on getting started. I'm from NC as well and own property here. Now on to the second one...

Definitely wouldn't purchase something where nobody wants to be. Perhaps try looking at the main metro areas of VA (Richmond, Chester, etc.) like you said, and if those are too expensive (like it is for a lot of investors) then look at the communities right outside of them. Narrow it down to areas that attract people like schools, hospitals, universities, business centers, etc. and try to purchase around those. Establish your purchase criteria and what you want to hunt for.

One thing that's helped me the most is to set daily key performance indicators (KPIs). My personal goal is to analyze 10 properties per day and make 3 offers per week (12 offers/month). Do it first thing in the day before the hustle of the day gets to you. Out of the 12 offers I make per month, maybe 1 will get accepted. 

So are you investing now (as in you already own property) and are debating whether or not you should buy more property? Or have you never invested before and you're trying to figure out if you should start investing or not? Message is a litter unclear.

Either way, the worst thing you can do is just sit on the sideline and never get involved. Buy property that makes sense and will make you money. Some properties will be monster awesome deals, some will be ehh deals. But...

If it don't make dollars then it don't make cents!

@Hope Louisse Montenegro I agree with @Jason Reynolds, its hard to know the best thing to do other than just learn from it right now. 

I'd also be curious to know how long you've had the property and do an overall analysis of the actual cash flow its brought you. All things being considered, it sounds like the property manager has been less than ideal, and could be the true source of the problem. Maybe try finding a new property manager that can screen better tenants for you?

I'm doing the exact same thing on my primary property right now. I can't offer advice on what you can or can't do, but am following this post for advice as well. Hopefully we can find an answer!

MEANWHILE MEANWHILE - thought it would be worth mentioning that while I was typing this, they messaged me for the Zoom call. In my line of work, we don't wait 5 minutes before the call to set the meeting. We send the invitations with the conference line credentials well ahead of time to be proactive. Soooo they tried. Just thought I'd throw it in there.

Welp... here I am, almost 10am EST Monday, when REI Reply CEO, David Espaillat, and their head of support, Susan Ishman, said they would have a zoom call with me to discuss the product/service. At this point, between the flood of posts (more on that below), those posts being very similar in content, the owner and staff admission to sending people here to post, then DM'ing me to invite me for a Zoom call, then ghosting me, after clearing my morning from my W2... I'm done. I won't wait until the last minute to get an invitation, which I provided my email for them to be proactive in blocking our time.

1. For the people that have few posts and left a review - I think you're real people, I think you're good people, I think you genuinely mean well and were trying to help. However, it just became a situation of overselling and seemed disingenuous. Again, I think all of you as individuals meant well, but the volume of the posts was what raised suspicion. It just seemed at first it was a VA with multiple profiles (which I don't think anymore), and now just seems like you were offered an incentive to make a comment here. When there is an incentive thrown in, it stops being real. How many of us have left a positive Google or Yelp review, even when it might have been less than stellar, just to get few dollars off our next meal or something similar? I know I have.

2. In my opinion (everyone is entitled to their own wrong opinion), if you're the owner of a company, it seems like the more professional thing to do would be to do invite me to a zoom call in the first place. Not send a bunch of people over, realize your followers are overdoing it (again, not your fault users), then have to back track and salvage it. We all make mistakes, but when you're a business owner, especially a web based software, you just have to be extremely careful with your actions. 

3. I just think its strange that when I google David and REI Reply, nothing comes up. Then when there was another post about this being a rip off more expensive version of another company... just weird to me.

4. I see there are a lot of other capabilities, but RVM and Text blasting is getting cracked down on. If that's their bread and butter (and I recognize there are other things on their platform). How sustainable is this company? What is their business model? What happens when RVM and Text blast become either illegal or blocked more intensively by carriers? I don't know the answer, but it doesn't seem to be a fit for me and how I'd like to conduct business.

5. I made a comment about being stoked about front page of BP... apparently sarcasm is tough to pick up on here. Really don't care about the vanity. Just wanted a product review lol 

All being said, for the users, I'm sure you're great and I'm glad you found a good service that's working for you. It's just not for me. Please don't hate me for it. Deuces. 

MEANWHILE, speak of the flippin' devil, who else just got the email from BP this morning about their BP reviews service? Who else is thinking we should just toss this up to them to decide? Upvotes for review?

To everyone in this post.

My intent behind creating this was just to open a discussion and find a 3rd party review. I see on the website there are reviews and testimonials, but in a world where you can buy followers and reviews, I’m optimistically cautious (hence my original post saying that it sounds like a great service and maybe they’re cracked the code) and somewhat skeptical about anything on the internet. Whether it’s a vacuum on Amazon or a service to help my business. I, like many others in this business, have been scammed out of thousands of dollars before, so please before you judge us for raising a red flag, please understand it comes from a place of protecting our businesses, the ways we provide for our family and secure our futures.

I also see there are those on the veteran side who join my caution. Reasons for the company not being around a while, the marketing tactic of users spamming the post, etc. I’ll say that I’m convinced these are real people, but still think the multiple posts from new user profiles that have never posted before warrants any investors suspicion. I don’t think that’s on them, they were directed here and believe in the product. I didn’t intend for this to be the amazon review page for the system, but here we are. On the other objection, for not being around for a while and having the CEO and Support staff reach out, I’m not sure if this warrants negativity towards the company. I used to work for a start up, we sold maintenance software to big oil and gas, chemical companies and other big producers. At the time of that companies inception, the CEO drove himself from Exxon, to Chevron, to BP and basically sold it door to door until it was successful. Less than 10 years later, They’ve now acquired 10+ other companies and are valued at nearly $2B. Privately Held. We all start somewhere.

I say all this to say that I can see both sides of this and I'm sorry for starting a name calling debate, of which I was also a participant. As an update, I'm meeting with the CEO of REI Reply on Monday. I can circle back and give an update afterward. I think that's the only logical thing to do, rather than throw gas on the fire of this post.

@Scott Passman Agreed, and that’s what I plan on doing and am setting up a call with the support person.

Truly don’t understand why some people are getting so upset about having a cautious feeling about a new product lol I guess it’s the way of the internet.

@Jay Johnson wasn’t necessarily the 49/month so much as is someone about to take my information and pay for a dream vacation without me lol after seeing all he responses and now Susan jumping in. I’m much more open to it.