All Forum Posts by: Zachery Buffin

Thanks!

Currently? I am in Africa. I used to work out of Nashville and went to school in Knoxville. I am pretty familiar with the markets all over the place in the state. I don't much care where the broker is as long as they don't mind having me be gone most of the year.

Hey everyone, 

     I have a Tennessee real estate Associate Broker License but I need a place to "hang" it so that I can operate as my own agent for real estate deals. I am willing to help other agents with marketing as much as I can but my primary job requires me to go overseas for months at a time. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

@Michael Peters Having bought 7 properties from them in the last two years could I trouble you for a breakdown on the process? You mentioned learning the outbid process, what specifically do you mean? 

How has the title process gone? I mean when I am doing the research on these properties I am of course seeing the liens placed that put the property in foreclosure and occasionally other liens. Have you had issues getting warranty deeds on the properties? 

Have you ever had a property that was occupied when you bought it? If so how long did it take for them to vacate? Have you had to evict? How has North Carolina been overall as a market?

Now I have never seen these guys advertise but I went to an investor meetup and heard from them directly. MidSouth Home Buyers have such a great business model and support for their product that if you are looking in Memphis I don't know that I would go anywhere else. Last I checked they had a six month waiting list, which they also do fairly, for one of their deals and they were putting them out fairly quickly. 

The waiting list is basically you saying you want to be offered a property when it comes available. You will be offered their current deal when your turn is up, you get put in a top ten for like three or four deals before you are dropped down to the bottom again. Their deals are all super similar so there isn't a good reason not to pull the trigger really. 

They say you can use conventional financing too, they install a tenant and manage the property. They understand investors and creating a cash flowing property. The fact they have a waiting list should tell you how satisfied their customers are. 

If you are a single family investor would is going for cashflow I don't know there is a better company in Tennessee doing what they do.

And there is where I see the long term opportunity. We are talking five to ten years down the road but if you are saying that they are focusing on the downtown core is there money moving into Macon? If so where from? There is job growth and that is more than a lot of towns in the north can say. The houses are not what I would call low end as much as in need of a lot of work, though I suppose they aren't in the best areas of town either. 

I was looking specifically south Macon so as to be able to offer to the Warner Robins Air Force community as well. The properties are just kind of floating between the two. Again more of a strategic decision to try to access both communities. 

@Lee Taylor

Thanks for the reply!

@Ryan Pozzi

I haven't read every post from your original question, this seems to be an area many people have an opinion on. What I would say is that money is a lever. Time is money, something we've all heard before, so time is also a lever. Effort is the last lever and with any one of those you can move forward. When I say that these three things are levers, I need you to understand that you have to know where it is you want to go before you ever try moving to get there.

I find that a lot of people are, what a major once explained to me, "all thrust and no vector." They go through nearly manic episodes of "I'm gonna eat healthy, I am going to the gym everyday, I am going to quit my job with passive income." All thrust and no vector to changing their lives to make these things reasonable.

If you want change, YOU are going to HAVE TO CHANGE. If the thought of discomfort is too unreasonable for you then maybe your goal isn't really that important to you. If making a PB&J for lunch everyday for a year, or two, or forever sounds like a step too far then you're not on the right journey my man. 

In the end money isn't the problem, mindset is. Money is a tool, if you have it you can save yourself time and effort. That is really all it does. Gurus try to sell you a solution, the simple answer is you know the solution to your problems hard work, dedication and deprivation are required. Surrounding yourself with likeminded people is incredibly helpful, not just to get deals done but to support you when you're feeling down, to let you know you're not crazy for chasing your dream.

I hope this helps, I am not trying to insult anyone or make it seem like I am calling anyone lazy or telling anyone their dreams aren't realistic. It is a hard pill to swallow that you will be hungry sometimes, you will be tired sometimes, you will live in discomfort, you will struggle and you will achieve only in adversity. 

I will leave everyone with this, a sergeant once told me, "we do the things today that others will not do, so that we may do tomorrow what other cannot do." 

Alright BP family, I have been gone for a bit but I am ready to get back in the game. Had to take a break due to some personal stuff and now I am back. Starting from square one again isn't easy but the journey to freedom starts with a first step right?

On to the meat and potatoes of this post. I still have good friends and contacts in the real estate world (so not 100% from scratch restart I suppose) and basically I have a dilemma of sorts. Two great opportunities in two separate cities have come up. In the end the break down goes a little something like this.

Chattanooga, TN - 3 hr drive away duplex, college town, opportunity zoned property, 20k buy, needs full rehab

Macon, GA - 2 hr drive away 2 SFR, potential growth, opportunity zoned properties, 25k buy (12,500 each), one needs more than the other.

I have a business partner who will be the project manager while I am primarily bring the deals and the financing to the table. The travel times are for him, I am currently out of the country. This all being said, all things being equal, the deals are nearly identical at the end of the day market rents for both areas range from about $550-$700 dependant on many factors. Property taxes are roughly equivalent, insurance rates are similar enough to not matter, the differences are so minor it is making it hard to choose. 

At the end of the day, what I am asking is which area do you all see having the greater long term potential and why? I would really like to get responses from people living in and around those areas but anyone invested in either spot would be helping me out a great deal by giving me some macro focused reasons why here or there. 

Thanks for taking the time to read if you hung with me this long if not...

TL:DR

Chattanooga, TN or Macon, GA for investment and why? 

@Jonathan Bouren It really wasn't much of an answer haha, sorry but I am no lawyer to tell you how to go about it. I am exclusively invested overseas at the moment with a plan to expand more out in South America. I do what I can remotely but the assets I typically buy require me to visit first hand before final approval goes. Vineyards and orchards can be fudged in the figures if you know what I mean. The people trying to sell may, not always, but often enough, inflate the figures and sell on optimum yield rather than realistic yields. 

I am also looking at multifamilies in Florida and Tennessee, what others might call large but which to me are small-to-medium  (5-16 units) to buy and hold. I wouldn't really mind buying in the states remotely as there are some protections and a basic assurance of quality. Overseas is a different story largely. 

I am in Aviation currently in Africa but things change so its hard to pin down where I will be at any given time. Most of my stuff runs through family businesses and the legal/accounting stuff is handled by professionals. I just find them and buy them. 

I hate to be this guy but this is very much an "answered by a paid professional" question. You need to talk to some kind of international law professional. 

The other thing I would say is that there are some states, like Nevada I believe, where you can set up an LLC without disclosing the names of the people involved in the company. You will have to do more individual research for that but that might solve your problem entirely. If no one knows what the nationality of the investor its not an issue.

That being said the obligatory caveat of me not being a legal professional and this not being sound legal advice from a reliable source needs to be typed. Cover your butt and all. 

As a final note, I am also an American abroad, nice to see others not letting it stop them from investing!