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Friday, April 25, 2008

When Life (And Death) Intervene

It's been a while since I have been able to post here.. I've been very busy at my day job and I was also out of state for four days last week, which created a big backlog of things I had to take care of upon my return.

I finally got the letter I requested from my old property manager stating that she was letting me out of the management agreement early. She claimed she never sent it to me before because she thought I just wanted a letter stating she got my letter, which she doesn't do. The most generous explanation would be that she never read my fax, because I clearly stated what I needed. Someone in the office probably got it and passed along the info incorrectly.

The letter was received last week and as soon as I got it, I called my new PM to tell her she could move forward on getting Rental #1 filled again. One bit of good news - along with the letter, the old PM also faxed me the names and phone numbers of two people who had contacted her about renting the property. I passed those on to my new PM as well.

The bad news is that I have still not been able to speak to my new PM in person yet. I've been calling every day for a week and have also sent email. Her cell phone was not being answered and, after day 3, I was no longer able to leave voice mail because she had no more room in her voice mailbox. The office number was answered by an answering service. Yesterday, I was able to leave voice mail on her cell phone again and today the answering service told me that there had been a death in the family and that was why she wasn't returning calls yet. I figured it had to be something like that. Anyway, I was told I would get a call back today around noon (which has come and gone). Unfortunately, the two parties interested in the property may no longer be interested after all this time has elapsed. Still, once the family issues have settled down for the new PM, I remain hopeful that she will be aggressively looking to get tenants in place for me.

The Houston apartment deal is set to close the end of this month. They still might be a bit short in raising funds and it might get pushed back one more month. I hope not.

I am also working on another 12% hard money loan. The borrower would be someone worth $5 - 10 million who is buying foreclosures at the courthouse. If the guy is willing to put up part of his interest in some North Dakota commercial real estate property (of which he has $5 million invested in property worth about $20 million) or part of his interest in a financial company (the one I was partnering with on the Louisiana deal), then I might do this. I've just had a very brief discussion with Les about this, so I'll have more info later, if it pans out. The 12% hard money deals are getting hard to find because interest rates are so low right now. But I'm not going to accept a deal just to get 12% if there are not substantial assets to back it up if the loan goes into default.

3 comments:

Starsky said...

Hello Shaun,
You & I disagreed on this Tulsa property, I thought the numbers didnt work, you did. I felt that a rosy picture was painted by the seller (Trisha) and that a trip to Tulsa to see the propety and the area its located would have saved you the issues you are having now. Im not here to gloat, but just commiserate with you & to learn the lesson you are learning with being a out of town property owner & not knowing who to trust to watch your investment. I noticed that a link to "building an empire" is not listed on your blogroll. Maybe thats just a typo or I am blind, but hope all is well with that..
Take care,
Im off to Vegas next weekend
Starsky

Shaun said...

The link was removed for other reasons and will return shortly. I have no problem with Trisha.

As far as the numbers, they do work - when it is rented :-) I agree a visit probably would have been in order.

Anonymous said...

I've felt the same situation you are describing. It is like you are married to your PM and partners. Your partners' and PM's family problems suddenly affect you and your businesses. That is one of the advantages of working with mid-size companies instead of individuals, but in the end even companies are nothing more than individuals, right?

The "great news" about one of my PM's to be "a happy new grandmother" meant my property remained vacant for a couple of extra weeks, go figure!

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