Invest in NZ - not in US properties is my mantra

[donna]

There hasn't been any secret squirrel approach at all Donna, I simply corrected your statement. You didn't ask me anything else. I am on record all over the net as stating our model involves proprietary fees that would otherwise be paid to a realtor. It was your statement that wasn't correct.

Shame you didn't feel it necessary to share your model here on PropertyTalk - a site you have been a member of for many years Dean. I guess you only share what you want to and this suggests to me that you'd do likewise in your role as 'property promoter'.

Cheers,

Donna

[donna]

More news on the US Res Housing Market......

14.3 million: The number of homes vacant year-round as of the end of March 2011

How long will the housing market take to hit bottom? A lot depends on whether people will want to occupy millions of empty homes.

With so many homes waiting to be occupied, it’s hard to imagine how prices nationwide could recover anytime soon

Some large landlords are already reporting the lowest vacancy rates they’ve seen in more than a decade, and say they’re planning significant rent hikes this year. Given the fact that rent makes up nearly a third of the Labor Department’s consumer-price index, that suggests the housing market has the potential to produce a highly undesirable economic combination: a drag on growth and a boost to inflation.

Source

Don't get stuck with a lemon. I'm confident Shane won't however as he plans to do the leg work (research etc) himself (as mentioned earlier on).

cheers,

Donna

[cube]

So if there are 14.3 million empty homes, how can there also be low vacancy rates?

Sounds like two facts about un-related markets to me - e.g. Empty houses in Detroit and low vacancies in L.A.

[PeterEmpowerEd]

Shane, nice summary:

Dean and others "property promoters" are agents or middlemen for property companies on the ground in the USA. These companies buy foreclosed (mortgagee) properties. These lists of properties are then forwarded to the agents or middlemen. The agents are usually "property educators/promotors" i.e. people with a good client database of willing investors.

Agents then offer the property lists to their clients in other countries such as NZ or run tours to the USA with interested potential investors. The USA property companies then pay the agents/middlemen a commision for each property bought by the property educator's clients. Usually $1,300 - $1,500 USD.

So Dean was telling the truth when he said he was not onselling the USA properties to his clients. What he did not disclose was that he makes a commision from every property bought by his clients. I am fine with someone adding value and making a profit from it if full disclosure is given.

I'm not blaming you Shane, but it irritates me to see the almost unconscious conflation of "property educators/promotors" ... a case of wolves in sheep's clothing popularised by spruikers Richmastery and still practiced today by their offspring, former confederates, apprentices and accomplices.

Your statement "...pay the agents/middlemen a commision [sic] for each property bought by the property educator's clients" reveals how unremarkable this is to many.

To me, it's a key point. They're NOT 'educators'. They're salesmen. (Isn't that Donna's point?)

Never mind. Disclosure requirements, which you point to, have tightened up in NZ ... could that partially be behind the move offshore?

I am on record all over the net as stating our model involves proprietary fees that would otherwise be paid to a realtor.

I'm not aware of these on-the-record statements, but I would be interested in reading them, please. Where on the net are they?

Dean, if you and your business partners receive a fee commensurate with that of a real estate agent's commission, it seems to me that implies you are acting as real estate agents, just as Shane outlines.

And what's 'proprietary' about these fees? Aren't they just a simple success fee/commission for shifting the property? Do you get a cut of any ongoing management fees? Insurance?

- P

[halfempty]

I'm not blaming you Shane, but it irritates me to see the almost unconscious conflation of "property educators/promotors" ... a case of wolves in sheep's clothing popularised by spruikers Richmastery and still practiced today by their offspring, former confederates, apprentices and accomplices.

So who's still doing this?

Surely they will get spanked by the REAA?

[muppet]

Renters are next victims of the housing market

Landlords take advantage of tighter market to push through increases





Scott Olson / Getty Images Nationally, rents are expected to rise 5 percent during 2011 and another 5 percent during 2012.

By Jane Hodges
msnbc.com contributor
updated 6/14/2011 7:41:10 AM ET
Stephan Metelica, a 24-year old charter pilot, shares a two-bedroom apartment with a friend in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. The duo split the $1,525 monthly rent, but they were surprised this month when their landlord lease came up for renewal and their landlord asked for a 5 percent increase, to $1,600.
“I was pretty upset about it,” Metelica says of what would amount to nearly $40 more per month per person. “I thought a 5 percent increase was ridiculous.”
Renters, long happy to sidestep the drama homeowners have suffered in the roller-coaster housing market, are now facing their downside of the real estate market’s correction. With apartment and rental housing construction halved in recent years and a wave of former homeowners competing for apartment space with "echo boomers" and other renters, conditions have suddenly ripened for landlords to raise the rent.
Metelica persuaded his landlord to curb the increase, capping his new rent at $1,550. The roommates and landlord have a verbal agreement for that new rental rate, he says, with a new lease signing imminent. But his ability to talk his way out of a bigger rent increase makes him more of an exception than the rule this year, according to experts.
Last year the rental market quietly shifted from a tenants’ market to what is now decidedly a landlord’s market, said Chris Herbert, research director at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The supply of properties is tightening and vacancy rates are dropping, so landlords have been emboldened to raise the rent.
Nationally, rents are expected to rise 5 percent this year and another 5 percent in 2012, according to Greg Willett, vice president of research and analysis at MPF Research in Carrollton, Texas. The trend is not expected to moderate until 2013, when new multifamily housing construction adds to supply and the housing market stabilizes enough to attract new buyers.
“In California, landlords have to file a 60-day notice if they plan to raise rents by more than 10 percent,” Herbert says. “And in some markets, we’re once again seeing them issue those notices.”
Of course all rental markets are local, and the trend is more pronounced in the San Francisco Bay area, for example, than in Southern California where rents are little changed.
Read more at

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43315486

[Neongreen]

On the North Shore rents have gone up by at least 10%, up to 20% in some cases. This would be in the last 3-4 months.

Used to be that you could get an alright little 1 bedroom flat for $200. Now it really starts from $240.

I believe it's due to the RWC, the earthquakes, and lots of houses are now being sold. This is reducing rental stock, probably temporarily.

Auckland City Central, the supply of apartment has dropped by 50%. Usually about 650 apartments available, nowadays there is about 450. Prices have also gone up, but I'm not sure of the amount since I don't track it that closely.

Flatting costs have also gone up by 10-15% on the shore as well.

It's my understanding that the rest of NZ has a very stagnant rental market? So that would be similar to the above phenomenon.

[donna]

My concern with investing in US properties is the status of their economy etc - they are in deep brown stuff according to all the reading I am doing and it's not going to improve for them for a very long time so why would you want to sink any hard earned cash into their property market - great to get some good cash flow (though that may be short term if their economy worsens and more lose the ability to pay rent) and not so good if you are stuck with a property you can not sell if you need to - not to forget to mention the usual hassle with dealing with PIs so far away from where you reside....and of course this is just my own personal opinion. It becomes more of a sham (in my humble opinion) when you buy from finder and there's lots of interested parties clipping the ticket on your purchase - geez and maybe on the management of it too.

cheers,

Donna

[TheLiberalLeft]

Easy for agents to keep you at arms length too, especially being so far away. Unless you travel to the place on a regular basis (or at least the agent believes you do), I expect you'd be treated as the poor relation by the agents.

[donna]

good reply here from a seasoned investor who has been a member of PropertyTalk for some time -

cheers,

Donna

[Shane D]

I'm not blaming you Shane, but it irritates me to see the almost unconscious conflation of "property educators/promotors" ... a case of wolves in sheep's clothing popularised by spruikers Richmastery and still practiced today by their offspring, former confederates, apprentices and accomplices.

To me, it's a key point. They're NOT 'educators'. They're salesmen. (Isn't that Donna's point?)

Peter,

Yup, I know it erks you.. the whole "I'm a property educator...and btw I have this great property for you to buy" line offered up by some of those in the property education business.

Lucky we have you....our "industry referee" to keep them on their toes :-).

Keep up the good work Peter.

Shane

[halfempty]

Lol nice one Shane I can't decide if your being serious or not?

Hey Peter no reply to my earlier question?

Who's the former RM'er trading to their educational clients and do you think thats a REAA issue?

[Shane D]

Lol nice one Shane I can't decide if your being serious or not?

Halfempty...I'm deadly serious man. Peter is a like a pitball on those guys. He never lets go :-).

Shane

[halfempty]

So why do you think he won't answer my question then?

If these guys really are selling properties to their clients why not name them?
The more he fails to back his claims the more it just sounds like he's preaching form an empty sandbox.

Reminds me of Neil Jenman, started out useful then just became a bit less believable because absolutely everyone in the entire industry seemed to become the enemy overnight.

[Shane D]

So why do you think he won't answer my question then?

Probably because you don't really have a grasp of the issue we are talking about in this thread. We are talking about property promotors introducing clients to property in the USA.

As the properties are in the USA, the property promotors do not need to abide by the NZ real estate institute laws/rules.

Shane