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Post by lightshiner on Apr 7, 2015 8:24:35 GMT
Many thanks for clarifying some points. Firstly its good to hear that you did not end up owing people money but in reply to shimself I would still be concerned that so many businesses did not work if I was investing.
£36,500 sounds like a huge amount of money for the works your talking about - are you connected in anyway to the company doing these works? As this would be very important. If you are connected what was the cost to this company doing these works?
Having a strategy of over investing In a property where you yourself say you will struggle to sell it for even the money that you have in it sounds incredibly risky. Saying you will get an investor to buy it at an 8% return sounds very odd as properties in this area are generally selling for 10-12% returns so unless we see significant shifts in the market this is very unlikely for a reasonable period of time.
I think also very important is where are these properties being sourced from? Are you in anyway connected to this company? As the values see rather high for a property specialist to be paying.
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mikeb
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Post by mikeb on Apr 8, 2015 18:37:52 GMT
Hi Mike
Please be aware it shows his active companies, he is only involved in the house crowd.
The HCP projects are not in his name.
I am not aware of any properties being sold. Not sure how reliable your information is if you got this wrong ... Go to companycheck.co.uk. Put in "House Crowd Project", throw a dart and see what the directors come up as. Anyone we know? Now using the same site, try looking at all the other companies that are active too. "He is only involved in the house crowd" is clearly untrue. "Beyond Boutique Hotel Investments" for a start ... Properties being sold -- you may need to hear from the investors who were involved on that one. However, using your company check site, look at "House Crowd Project 006 Limited", also 008, 009,
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shimself
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Post by shimself on Apr 8, 2015 18:56:44 GMT
.... £36,500 sounds like a huge amount of money for the works your talking about - are you connected in anyway to the company doing these works? As this would be very important. If you are connected what was the cost to this company doing these works? ... I think also very important is where are these properties being sourced from? Are you in anyway connected to this company? As the values see rather high for a property specialist to be paying. Frazer, to put this to bed can you state here on the record that neither THC, nor any other company in which you are a shareholder or director, nor any connected parties are selling properties or refurb services to the THC SPVs. (rephrase by all means, you're the ex lawyer) Thanks
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Post by delboy711 on Apr 8, 2015 20:26:16 GMT
My main worry would be that I bought a property worth circa £150k and paid £210k. We run it for a few years let's say 5 and after that it needs refurbished needing say £20,000 spent on it. If the market has stayed static or sank like it has over the last 5 years then I could be facing large losses. Obviously there are other costs through selling it etc.. They see to selling a lot of deals but I guess until any are sold no one knows where they stand. The Information memorandum for each project states that apart from the 5% upfront fee no call will be made on the investors if later additional expenditure is needed. In that event funding would come from THC general contingency fund. As for facing losses on selling. It is my understanding that THC philosophy is not to sell unless a profit can be made. They would just keep on generating income. The THC web site on its projects status page (investors only) lists two projects sold, HCP002 and HCP008 both produced returns for investors of about 25% When projects are wound up the articles of association say that B shareholders (that's us) get their capital back first, and the remainder is distributed pro-rata between THC and the investors. (In the early projects THC got 50%, but nowdays they only get 25%) As for shares and voting. Investors own 'B' shares which do not have voting rights. There are only two 'A' shares in existence which are owned by THC. So they get to appoint directors and run the company as they see fit. It is not a democracy, it is a business. At the end of the minimum holding period the articles of association call for annual votes among the 'B' shareholders to decide if to market the property for sales. If any shareholder wants an earlier exit they are at liberty to sell their shares either privately, or via THC. All these things are described in the documentation you can download for any project. You are clearly worried that THC is just one big scam. Being sceptical is a good thing, and you are right to look deeply into any prospective investment. I am now invested in 27 House Crowd projects and would have run a mile if I thought them in any way dodgy. In practice investing in the House Crowd is totally boring (in a good way). You put money in, and you get the stated returns back. Is it possible to invest in these types of houses yourself and make more profit? Absolutely for sure it is. But I know I could not do it as well as they can, and this way I do not have to lift a finger.
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Post by lightshiner on Apr 9, 2015 9:42:30 GMT
Overhaul central heating system with new boiler. - £1200 Repair roof, gutters, flashings. - £1000 (probably a lot less)
Ridge tiles and chimney repairs - I assume this comes under the above but lets say £500 (although with £1500 on a roof your getting close to a full new roof) Cap and vent chimneys.
Install Damp Proof course - £2000 if it was full house again very doubtful as house looked completely fine)
Patch pointing - £500
Internal plastering - included in damp proof price General building
Refurbish windows - £2000 Paint and carpet.
Overhaul the bathroom. - Overhaul?? £500 New internal doors
The property will also need to be fully furnished to a good standard - £6000 (probably a lot less) to attract quality tenants.
Total = £13,700 - Lets say £16,500 to be kind as they are estimates obviously coming from 10 years of doing these jobs
I do find it quite funny that when people have made bad investments they will fight tooth and nail to defend it. By my calculations they are saying they banked a £10,000 profit but may of in fact banked another £20,000. Then 5% on top is that correct? Rule number 1 in property investment is to protect your capital as if you have lost 30% capital to begin with by buying badly then your 5-6% return is going to take some time to recover.
I really did want to leave this thread alone as it is not my position to break down these investments for people who do not understand them. if people are happy with THC and the way they operate then good for them. If THC was my company and someone was saying what I have said may be happening I would of responded within 2 minutes to defend my position. It would of took 2 minutes of Frasers time to say - 'I can confirm we are not connected in anyway and get a number of quotations regards the work done, you have mis-read the quote because we actually did spend this etc.. etc..'
I have spent under an hour looking at this, I am sorry I may of missed something on companies house or got a couple of things wrong but in under an hour I done more research than most people seem to of. If you are happy tying your money up in these deals then please go forth and continue. Good luck to all
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Post by frazerf on Apr 9, 2015 15:26:57 GMT
Sorry you feel I should jump to attention and answer your posts within 5 minutes, but after discussing this with our marketing team we decided there there is nothing to be gained by me spending my time defending myself as the nature of these dialogues is that they will just lead to more and more questions/ accusations and use up more and more of my time. As I pointed out I would prefer to focus my efforts on the thousands of very happy clients we have.
I would also point out Properyguy that you appear to have, just a week ago, set up what looks like a hastily put together anonymous avatar (as you seem to have spelt propertyguy incorrectly). I note you have made no other posts about anything else on this forum so it looks like your sole intention is casting insinuations about me and my company I can only assume that you have an interest in a competing company or have an axe to grind.
As already stated everything you say is based on your assumptions about the price - which you were wrong about and your assumptions about the cost of the refurb, which you are also wrong about. I am truly puzzled as to why someone seems to believe they are entitled to have a sensible opinion about such matters, despite not having read the surveyors report or seen the quotes from the building companies we got quotes for. Yet with no accurate information you loudly proclaim that we are either fools or making what you regard to be a hidden and unreasonable profit.
Every property refurb is different and you simply have nowhere near enough knowledge about the situation to have a valid opinion ... In fact neither do I have enough information about it as other people in the company handle the budgets and builders. I have little to do with it.
As we should all realise it's very easy for an anonymous avatar to have an 'expert' opinion and criticise what others do - the internet is full of self important trolls - but whilst I may have to grin and bear it I certainly don't need to waste my time proving otherwise.
However, as requested by one of our investors, I will say it once and once only -
Whilst we source about 90% of our properties directly from the sellers, we do sometimes buy some of our deals from people / companies who e.g. buy properties at auction and then deliver a fully refurbished property complete with any necessary licences. There are risks and expense in them doing so and I do not think it unreasonable for them to make a profit. We have shied away from going to auctions to buy for HCPs as there is too much risk and also expense involved when things go wrong - expense that we would end up covering.
In some cases we buy a finished product in other cases we supervise such third parties to ensure the project is delivered to spec, on time, certified (all necessary electrical,gas, portable appliance, fire safety, and full hmo council compliance by internal works), and fully furnished at an agreed budget. The use of such property companies offers us access to off market deals and allows us to use the skills of experienced specialised developers allowing us to offer a wide selection of deals to our investors.
Our core model of high yielding property is maintained in this way. I take the view that the investments we offer are either attractive for people to invest in or not and the use of such 3rd parties is advantageous regardless of any profit they are making.
In this case we did not even use such a company - the deal was bought directly by the HCP from the seller and is as outlined in my post above. And I can confirm THC is simply making its usual 5% fee (slightly less in this case i think) and nothing else.
Anyway congratulations... you have managed to draw me into wasting another half hour of my life. That is now it. I will waste no more time trying to defend myself and will not respond to anything else.
If anybody is interested in what we do and has a genuine question they would like an answer to, we host monthly webinars which include a Q&A session or they can email me directly.
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Post by elljay on Apr 9, 2015 17:35:07 GMT
Posted this in another thread yesterday. Looks like it's relevant here too: Forum Moderator: "Is that Chill Pills R Us?" Chill Pills R Us: "Suuure is!" Forum Moderator: "Can I put an order of your finest blood pressure lowerers on standby please, I think we're might need them...!"
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Post by lightshiner on Apr 10, 2015 14:12:40 GMT
Hi
Just to clarify I don't think you owe me any reply or explanation. I was meaning where shimself said 'please put this to bed and confirm your not connected in any way....'
He is an investor and to write quickly underneath ' yes I can confirm we are not connected in anyway'. That would take two minutes. The fact is you have now stringed together a clever reply that completely avoids his question.
I can confirm I am not asking any more questions. This is for investors to do. As for me not being qualified I have worked in the building trade many years and I am sure anyone can get a quote for the scopes of works you have listed.
In reply to the earlier post where someone said 'the house crowd won't come chasing investors for money if any is required'. This is obvious as they will just take it from the rent. If the property brings in £10,000 rent and they spend £9000 then you just get 90% less income.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 10, 2015 15:19:31 GMT
<looks briefly baffled> Ah. Lightshiner is the poster formerly known as properyman.
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bigfoot12
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Post by bigfoot12 on Apr 10, 2015 15:42:29 GMT
<looks briefly baffled> Ah. Lightshiner is the poster formerly known as properyman. Still it is strange that the first post on this thread has gone. It looks like I started it.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 10, 2015 16:20:13 GMT
<looks briefly baffled> Ah. Lightshiner is the poster formerly known as properyman. Still it is strange that the first post on this thread has gone. It looks like I started it. I wouldn't worry too much - FrazerF quoted (some of?) that post. Hi All
I am wondering if any members of the house crowd realise that the prices are being inflated? I looked at the recent multi let in Warrington they had listed for £210,000 but it was still coming up as listed on rightmove for circa £165,000. If they got a good deal they may of purchased it for £150,000. This has put me off dealing with them as it is obviously going to be hard to make any capital gain at all. I can not find anywhere on the site that they explain these huge fee's they are whacking on the properties and wondered if anyone who is already investing can shed any light on this?
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mikeb
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Post by mikeb on Apr 10, 2015 19:01:47 GMT
<looks briefly baffled> Ah. Lightshiner is the poster formerly known as properyman. Still it is strange that the first post on this thread has gone. It looks like I started it. That would appear to be another sign of trolling then, wouldn't it? Nymshifting and deleting posts? Considering the research done by improperlyspelt doesn't seem to have been very in-depth, or accurate, I guess we can disregard most of it. Of course, we are just "fools fighting tooth and nail to defend our bad investments"
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Post by lightshiner on Apr 10, 2015 19:14:28 GMT
Lol. I changed my name as I have shone a light on something. Please disregard whatever you like. It will make you sleep better ?. Not sure about trolling I thought I raised some extremely important points and facts that many people had not bothered to look at before piling in their hard earned cash. As i say it took me an hour. I had already entered on a previous post. Obviously Fraser is upset. He's banking wadges of people's hard earned cash buying them properties that even he himself has stated will probably be sold for a loss in 5 years unless an investor will buy it for an 8% return(good luck with that one). Read the questions from shimself and them read Frasers answers. THC made 5%. I would of thought it would be the development company that made the money. The question was pretty easy to answer, one line would of done. 'I am no way associated with any company that done work on behalf of any refurbishments for THC' Or something along them lines. Instead you got a lawyer response that seemed pretty clever but dos not actually answer his question at all. I think I raised some very important points that many investors would look at seriously. I
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Post by lightshiner on Apr 10, 2015 19:16:46 GMT
Can I also say that for someone worries about wasting time answering people's questions he wrote a hell of a long answer to avoid the actual question
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 12, 2015 14:37:32 GMT
Obviously Fraser is upset. Yes, it's not an uncommon response from people who are publicly being accused of criminal fraud, especially by somebody hiding behind anonymity.
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