Realty411 Magazine A Spotlight on Charles and Lena Sells | Page 55
“We don’t want deferred
maintenance for the investor to
have to deal with at all...period, so
this year we’ll spend almost $40
million dollars renovating houses.
As you know, both of those things
right there...buying everything
ourselves and spending $40
million dollars renovating...are big
risks.
“We’re obviously a very big
operation, with a lot of borrowed
money, and that’s something that
most business owners right off the
bat...they want nothing to do with
it...no part of it. They want nothing
to do with that kind of risk, so
that’s the first difference.
“The second thing is, because
we’re so big and we’ve been
around for so long, and we’ve
done so much work with
government, meaning we’ve
bought houses from Fannie Mae
and when we sell our houses,
investors get Fannie Mae loans,
that we have been under constant
scrutiny for the way we conduct
our business, and that’s a good
thing.
“So what I mean by that, is that
we pull permits on every job we
do. Our business operates in a way
that every piece is independent, so
for example, somebody doesn’t
have to use our management
company in order to buy from us.
“These differences may seem
small, but they're big differences
because other companies, they're
not going to pull permits because if
nobody's looking and you know,
and you want to cut the cost of a
job, you don't spend the money on
the permits, you hold the price
down for the investor.
“And then at the same time if
these companies are going to sell
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the house, they’ll often tell the
investor ‘you have to use our
management company.’
“We don't do that...we don’t
have to operate in a way that
raises red flags for investors.
“When you choose Memphis
Invest, you’re doing business with
a very professionalized company
that’s going to give you a reliable,
consistent return. You’re going to
feel a high sense of comfort and
security.
“The returns are not going to
be anything like a crazy, high
return...for cash on cash
purchases, your returns will be
somewhere between 6.5% and
7.5% and if you use bank
leverage, your returns will be
between 10% and 14%.
“For the security and the safety
that you get...and the peace of
mind...it’s a great return.
“Look. We made a decision in
2009 to no longer
compete with other
turnkey companies.
You know
everybody has been
in a race to the
bottom...how
quickly can we drop
our prices.
“We’ve chosen
to be different for a
good
reason...everybody
competes on the
return to the
investor, and what
we chose to
compete on was
actually delivering
the return to the
investor.”