patrick.net

Where is Torcana?

What a joke of an infomercial.

They're "guaranteeing" 8% til 2020? Sure. And I've got a nice big red bridge to sell you . It's just north of SF.

If the returns are so great, do you really think they'd be soliciting random people?

The brochure is somewhat horseshit. No one in Charlotte considers Gaffney to be "Charlotte area." They consider it "that one-horse town with a big fucking peach that you drive through to get to Atlanta." Gaffney is part of the Spartanburg-Greenville MSA, but it's fairly ex-urban. Also, it's definitely more than 45 minutes from Gaffney to the Bank of America HQ in Charlotte -- more like an hour minimum.

These fuckheads are just trying to capitalize on the Frank Underwood thing and get foreign chumps who don't know anything to give them money. Funny how these guys don't give any hard numbers other than 8% and 10%, without explaining how they got there. Even investment properties on MLS give more data than these jokers.

They don't even explain how the 8% is guaranteed. Is it via insurance? Is it via some sort of derivative? Is it some sort of structural creation? They also don't explain how they themselves are compensated. How liquid do you think this investment will be after this alleged 5-year lease ends? What sort of legal entity is this? Are you literally just buying these buildings with leases attached to them? If so, you need to do the math since you could be holding the bag afterwards.

8% min net return :). Need to know what are net off. Most probably many items such as property management, maintenance and repairs, security, etc are not net off. Btw, many places in USA have gross yield of 8-10%. Effective net yield is only about 1-2% :(.

While I was thinking , All of these units have been snapped up by a Singapore based investor . All gone.

hanera says

Most probably many items such as property management, maintenance and repairs, security, etc are not net off.

Right, these guys aren't disclosing enough. If they're the management company, they could easily be skimming before you get your cut.

sbh says

Name one Republican who doesn't believe Jesus rode dinosaurs (hat tip to Dan) and I'll give him/her every chance. That's my first filter: no theocrats.

Rand Paul did point out, about a year ago, that Jesus was not a massive warmonger in the vein of most Republican voters. I think Rand has been pulled aside and 'splained some things by his handlers since then.

Three points:

- The world is more than 10,000 years old
- It's pretty darned likely that humans done warmed our planet
- Empires are not in the budget, particularly if you want to cut taxes

Who's in the Republican primary pool that would dare say these things?

Jon Huntsman as much as screamed "Allahu Akbar!" when he said "To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming."

(Actually, "Allahu Akbar!" is probably safer - at least modern conservatives have a lot in common with fundamentalist muslims.)

If it were Huntsman vs. Hillary, I'd write a check to his campaign.

Turkana Boy - prolly very painful death.

The Professor says

Saved us from what?

Saved the middle class from resorting to cannibalism.

Funny, how people think bad things(like great depression) that happened in history will not happen in our time or future. Kinda, like saying, we disown history.

Morning all

This is Colin Murphy from Torcana Ltd. I realise the conversation has moved on a little from the real estate deal we are promoting in Gaffney South Carolina, but I´d like to clarify some of the very valid issues raised above.

I think the main theme is that not enough clarity was given in our promotional materials regarding how the 5 year warranty works, what it includes and doesn´t, what the risks are etc.

Almost by definition, the "glossy brochure" tends to gloss over the nuts and bolts of how a deal works. Its purpose is to describe the opportunity and get prospective buyers interested in learning more. Once they want to learn more, we have comprehensive due diligence packs available and we go through them in detail.

These include incorporation certificates of the companies involved, the title deeds, previous history of the seller, details and license number of contractors, local realtors and property managers, copy of building permits, copies of contracts and closing documents, operating budget for 2014 and proof that the local college has signed a five year rental agreement for these units.

As you might imagine, the bulk buyer in Singapore who secured them from us requested all these documents and far more besides.

We may be a very small company by US real estate standards but I think we have a good reputation and certainly a lot of repeat business by seasoned investors. I would never put our name to a product (we are just one of three companies promoting this) unless I thought everything was above board.

Hope this helps.

Colin Murphy
Director
Torcana Ltd

Thank you Professor, have corrected the grammar mistake. I´ve made worse :-)

HEY "COLIN MURPHY,"

GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU SHYSTER.

if this is SUCH A GREAT INVESTMENT, then why don't you LEVER THE FUCK UP AND BUY EVERYTHING YOURSELF, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE?!?!?!?

I hope you assholes lose your shirt, then get visited by a couple slightly angry investors after they get taken for a ride when your ponzi collapses.

cloud,

I went to their website and saw a testimonial from an Aussie investor. In the response above, Colin said his investors are from Singapore.

It's unfortunate that a lot of Aussie and New Zealand investors got taken advantage of from the Midwest and South turnkey companies and marketers. Don't be one of those investors and get slaughtered.

There are many ways to make 8% returns in real estate. If you want something passive, invest in notes and tax liens. Come hang out at Biggerpockets and learn how to do these. The Norris Group in Socal is selling 1st Deed of Trust at 65%-70% LTV at 9% annual returns. With tax liens, you can earn 12%-18% depending on counties, but you have to put in some effort to learn this.

If I only get 8% returns investing in real estate without appreciation potential, I will put all of my money in the stock market. Like the old saying......."cash-flow pays the bill; appreciation makes you rich."

Good luck.

E-man says

I went to their website and saw a testimonial from an Aussie investor. In the response above, Colin said his investors are from Singapore.

It's hard to cross-check reference that are 15- 20K miles away. Is there a testimonial with someone a hell of a lot closer to home say Brazil?

E-man says

With tax liens, you can earn 12%-18% depending on counties, but you have to put in some effort to learn this.

Arizona counties are popular. There is no tax lien In CA :'-(

basically you pay property tax for the counties and you take over ordering of the lien before bankers and mortgages. like the counties. eventually someone will have to pay the tax lien with interest and that is your payday.

learned that from rich dad poor dad seminar in moscone. lol

It's too much detail work, maybe someone (E-man?) should start a company and round out the assets (preferably SFH), inventory all the tax liens, buy them, manage them and split the interests/proceeds.

Facebooksux says

HEY "COLIN MURPHY,"

GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU SHYSTER.

if this is SUCH A GREAT INVESTMENT, then why don't you LEVER THE FUCK UP AND BUY EVERYTHING YOURSELF, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE?!?!?!?

I hope you assholes lose your shirt, then get visited by a couple slightly angry investors after they get taken for a ride when your ponzi collapses.

No response from the asshole who's peddling this garbage?

@SFace,

I've looked into tax liens. During the downturn, that was the best time to buy them and wait for redemption. However, why buy tax liens when you can make much more buying real estate? In normal time, properties, that owners let go, are typically junks that are worthless. Also, competition is fierce now because everyone is looking for yields.

I've been looking into mobile parks. Seems like we have to go out of state to get better yields. However, we are giving up appreciation for a couple percentage points in yield. Not worth the risk in my opinion. In addition, when we invest out of state, someone else controls our destiny. As you already know, no one is looking after our money better than we can. With that said, I've been doing some hard money lending to rehabbers for 1%/month. So far, it's working out ok.

A lot of people look at returns as a %. Look a 15% return in Texas is better than a 3% in Palo Alto. but 3% in Palo Alto is what 60K. a 15% in Texas is what 30K.

Of course you can buy 10 homes in Texas for one in Palo Alto. But you have 10 times more tenants to maintain and 20x more square feet to maintain in roof, siding, carpets and floors which will destory the returns and raises your headache level 20X. Of course, you can pay for those headaches to go away from your bank account too and you know they are looking for your cash.

A solid investment should be one that has low permanent cost, simple to maintain/manage, have acceptable cash yields and appreciation potential. Chasing the highest yield always causes headache for miniscule cash of say $300 in cash a month. A typical Palo Alto home appreciated by about 1M over the last 10 years so you know chasing yield is proven to be failure.

SFace says

A solid investment should be one that has low permanent cost, simple to maintain/manage, have acceptable cash yields and appreciation potential.

AAPL :).