All Forum Posts by: Christopher Telles

This is a very interesting post, and one in which I can relate.

The quick answer is an average young person with absolute dedication towards their goals can in fact create a fortune of $100MM or more in the span of the time frame referenced.

How do I know? I've seen it first hand, and was on my way (well, pushing 10% of it). Of course that's before the doctor severed my capital limbs (the doctor being the not so great recession).

I was raised in an atypical blue collar family and community in So Cal. Always being entrepreneurial minded I left a management job in City Government to go to work as a commercial real estate agent at 27 y/o. By the time I was 35 I had bought several large commercial buildings, and embarked on starting a commercial development company.

My net worth was substantial, and cash flow allowed for a very comfortable lifestyle. By then I had moved my family to Newport Beach, CA where many of So Cal's large real estate companies and investors reside. My wife and I entrenched ourselves in the community and I got to know many, many of these real estate folks through involvement in our kids private schools, their community sports activities, and the non profit boards I sat on.

I heard how individuals on their own, brothers and sisters, cousins, families, and friends  pooled together resources to start buying real estate. And those purchases continued over many years. Some of the real estate owners were benefactors of previous generations, but the vast majority were self made. In fact, my development company partner and I met on one of those same sports fields were I met many other real estate folks.

The development company didn't work out, but to give you a perspective of how you can get to the type of net worth that's the subject of this thread we had five projects across the state of California from San Diego to Palo Alto and each was at a minimum 18 acres. We had planned on building small business parks, and had the land in escrow or under contract. We even had Toshiba lined up for a 15 year build to suite lease, but it did't work out. We were to capital constrained, and when we needed capital the most the hedge fund Long Term Capital imploded and brought lending to its knees in commercial real estate for some two years.

But had we executed just a year earlier we would have probably gotten all of our deals funded. And the exit would have gotten my family closer to the subject net wroth as opposed to further away from it.

There have been many comments here that have mentioned luck. I don't believe that to be true. I instead believe that the harder I work, the more detailed I am in my processes, the more people I meet, and the more respect I extend to others the luckier I will become. 

Build a plan, put your head down to execute, and then go do what needs to be done to get you to your goals. Happiness isn't delivered through the wealth, happiness is found in the process.    

Transparency is omni potent when we're talking about relationship development especially in real estate. And I think that's the direction you're headed in which is a very big positive. In the development of relationships transparency shouldn't be viewed in the same context as say a transparency that is part and parcel of a fiduciary transparency rather it refers more to being open and honest with ones knowledge, skills, and network. This then allows the OP to access whether the transparent persons actions are congruent with their own and there exists a compatible personality. Keep doing what you're doing, and really you just need to side step those that have an another agenda of their own.

@Cody Alexanderis correct. You also want to address the envelope carefully. If you want to ensure the envelope is forwarded to the person you are trying to reach then you will need to address it to them specifically at X address. If they are not located at that address and have a forwarding service in place it will forward to them.

On the other hand  if you want the envelope to remain at the address on the envelope then you will want to add a second addressee line:

Mr/Mrs

Or current occupant

XYZ Street, Burmuda 00000

If you are using a mail service check with them for the best way to ensure your mail is delivered. If you are doing the mailing yourself then head down to the post office during an non busy hour and bend someones ear about using the best method to get you mail to your desired destination.

Originally posted by @Tony Johnson:

@Christopher Telles

How accurate is PN? I do have access to Realist which lets me pull an awful lot of tax/foreclosure info but my main focus is on getting accurate ARV's without having to sift through data for 5 minutes. Maybe even just have the pictures for the best comps available so I could do a quick picture-to-picture estimate and determine ARV quickly.

Its extremely accurate. I've used it for 4-5 years, and switched over from CoStar. I'm mainly in the commercial end of real estate, but my wife uses it daily for residential investment work. 

Its quick, its accurate, easy to use, and its cheap. 

If you do business with one of the national title companies Ask your title rep to provide you access to their nationwide title plant.

In our market they provide you with an account that allows you to pull title reports and or comps up to a certain limit each month that automatically renews.

I've used that but an even quicker way is to subscribe to a data service that has comps too. I use ProspectNow to look up properly data on ownership and to quickly pull comps. 

PN also allows me to search for NOD filings & REO's by dates, areas, and property type. For under $100 a month it's the best resource I use to quickly have access to all the data I need to look at potential deals.

Oh yeah, I should also mention they also provide the phone numbers for the property owners.

I've owned homes with both above ground and below ground pools. Here's the thing, caring for a pool isn't always easy even for pool professionals. 

I'm in So Cal so I get that a pool can be an attractive amenity. But caring for an above ground pool brings on a new dimension to pool ownership. Because of the materials used in the construction of above ground pools, mainly the plastics, it can be more difficult to maintain a healthy water balance. 

And unless someone is really committed to caring for an above ground pool it can become a swamp in no time flat.

Should you tend to agree to allowing the tenant to install a pool I would contract for pool maintenance as the landlord so you retain maintenance control and then amend her lease or rental agreement to recapture the increased cost for both the insurance and the pool service contract.

You may want to have your operating agreement (and understanding between you) stipulate you as the managing member and the future bro-in-law a member.

Since you're putting up the money and have more at risk you'll want to retain decision making control even if practically speaking you'll both will be making the decisions together. 

Check with your lender before creating an LLC to hold title. A lot of lenders apparently don't care to lend to Llc's for SFR.

Originally posted by @Lior Shaashoua:

Hello, I just got an signed contract for 830K Multifamily.

I would like to know how (and if) I get get an asset base mortgage on that property.

Down payment- up to 35-40%.

I am forigen with no SSN.

THANKS

 Do you mean you have 35-40% to put as a down payment? 

Originally posted by @Edward Mccracken:

First of all, thanks for the lead on the stale note.  I did some research and in Illinois, you have 10 years from the last day that the contact was breached.  So whenever the owner made the last payment the creditor has 10 years, and this loan started in 2005.  So I will have to find out when the last payment was made.  

On paper it makes sense for the banks to release the loan.  House was purchased in 2005 for 125k.  Its currently worth about 15-25k plus 10-15k in repairs and 6k backtaxes.  So it makes sense instead of foreclosing, cleaning it up, putting it on the market and so on.  

Here is the update... I talked with the owner today and he "claims" that he hasn't paid taxes since 2008 but he filed a chapter 13 and said they were included in the BK but his BK has never was completed.  He also said that the county was not able to sell his back taxes because he was in BK.  I looked up online and it only tells me that the past two years hasn't been paid for a total of 6k.  I have to go down to the treasures office and pay them to do a tax analysis.  This should be interesting.... 

Its interesting that you say the banks sometimes just release mortgages instead of foreclosing on them. I think banks, almost all banks, have federal guidelines they must follow to participate in government sponsored programs e.g. fannie mae, freddy mac, FDIC Insurance, as well as a plethora of other government sponsored banking platforms.

I'm not a banker, so maybe they can apply for a Mulligan, but it just seems odd in todays highly regulated environment that a bank would be able to walk away from a collectable mortgage, even if the cost of foreclosing was greater than the cost of walking away.

A less expensive alternative, I think, might be to consider submetering the electric for the units off of the main power panel. The interior electrical work should/would be nil, and the cost of submetering won't require the installation of two new power panels, assuming you currently only have one. idk maybe @Stephen Joyner can chime in and provide some electrician professional insight on this option.

Now the on the billing side of things, you would still be responsible for providing electrical service to the units as the main electric company account holder, but you would be able to bill each unit for their own proportionate share of the electric bill. This obviously may allow you to reduce expenses since the tenants would then be responsible for operating and paying for the use of any electric devises and or AC/HVAC/Heat units running.