Is This a Real Estate and Investment Ripoff???

steadystate

Fractal Fanatic
I'm betting that some of you out there know something about real estate and investing, and I need to bend your ear. I fear that someone I know and love is getting taken.

Someone close to me recently inherited a significant amount of money. I suggested that she see a financial adviser. She was lukewarm to the idea.
She then came across a Youtube channel from a guy named Pace Morby, who runs a "community" of people who use something called "Subto" financing to make money in real estate.

He recently came to Vegas for a "get together hike", along with some of his established "students". He hooked her up with one of these people and told her that this guy would be her "partner".

Fast-forward two months, and this guy already has her signing a contract. They took over the mortgage of a distressed property, and got their names on the deed. They did not refinance or take out a new loan. They assumed the original owner's loan payments without telling his lender.

They plan on bringing in multiple "disadvantaged" families into this single family home, with an organization called Family Promise paying the notes for all tenants. The two of them split the outgoing mortgage payments, utilities, insurance, etc. 50/50. They are then to be paid by Family Promise for all of the tenant's rent. Having multiple families is the only way this could possibly make money for them.

The property currently has equity of $190,000. They estimate that their monthly expenses will be $2300, and that their income from Family Promise will be $4300.

Despite the red flags I see above, this is what really blew my mind...

She put up $55,000 upfront and wired it to the title company. He put up zero. She gets 10% of the monthly positive cash flow, and 10% of the equity. He gets 90% of both.

I tried to tell her that, best case scenario, she is only going to get $200/month back for her $55,000 payment. Equity aside, that will take 22.9 years for her to break even. Factoring in the current equity, it will take 15 years. And this doesn't take inflation into account.

When I told her she got taken, she denied it and got extremely angry with me. She arranged a meeting between the three of us. He constantly evaded my questions as to how she could possibly come out ahead, while he could not possibly lose. When he finally realized I wasn't going to let it go, he answered with the two comments I knew he would ultimately make: "She is getting my expertise and experience" (he's been an agent for two and a half years), and "She agreed to it".

Even now, she still thinks she is going to profit, and that I'm trying to control her by telling her she got taken. Our relationship has now been strained to the breaking point. Am I missing something? Can this possibly work to her advantage and I just can't see it? Am I flat out wrong?

She is continuing to meet with him while he tries to sell her on more of his "deals". I'd truly appreciate feedback from anyone who knows about real estate and/or investing.

Thanks.
 
Yes, she is getting take for a ride in a very blatant manner. Do you know what the payment to the title company was for?
 
Yes, she is getting take for a ride in a very blatant manner. Do you know what the payment to the title company was for?
No. I couldn't figure that out myself. I asked her, but she is no longer answering questions about it. I know that they paid the seller an amount of money to agree to their deal, but I'm not sure if that was paid to him through the title company.
 
No. I couldn't figure that out myself. I asked her, but she is no longer answering questions about it. I know that they paid the seller an amount of money to agree to their deal, but I'm not sure if that was paid to him through the title company.

Ok, sounds like the title company was handling the transaction.

She will probably come out ok in the end if FP holds up their end. She could have come out very nicely if her "partner" wasn't so greedy. Handing her 100% of the risk for a 10% stake was positively shameless. This guy has zero in the game, no mortgage obligation and is getting 90%. Wow!
 
The very disconcerting part is the partner can decide to flip the property tomorrow and walk away with $170k and she will get $19K back on her $55k investment. This is a very bad position to be in to say the least.
 
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The very disconcerting part, is the partner can decide to flip the property tomorrow and walk away with $170k and she will get $19K back on her $55k investment. This is a very bad position to be in to say the least.
That's exactly what I told her. She refuses to believe this guy would rip her off. She's always been too trusting of people.
 
You said your piece - sometimes you can’t save someone from themselves.

I got a similar reaction of anger and total trust of the ripoff artist when I explained they were getting scammed ( different scam not real estate).
 
Ugh man, that sucks. Our modern world is full of unwarranted opinions and feelings disguised as facts, so strong they break up families and start wars.

Like @AtomicJeff alluded to, it's probably better to get clarity now than later, when you're deeper in.

Even if you're not together any more, I hope she doesn't get as pronged as looks likely.
 
I'm betting that some of you out there know something about real estate and investing, and I need to bend your ear. I fear that someone I know and love is getting taken.

Someone close to me recently inherited a significant amount of money. I suggested that she see a financial adviser. She was lukewarm to the idea.
She then came across a Youtube channel from a guy named Pace Morby, who runs a "community" of people who use something called "Subto" financing to make money in real estate.

He recently came to Vegas for a "get together hike", along with some of his established "students". He hooked her up with one of these people and told her that this guy would be her "partner".

Fast-forward two months, and this guy already has her signing a contract. They took over the mortgage of a distressed property, and got their names on the deed. They did not refinance or take out a new loan. They assumed the original owner's loan payments without telling his lender.

They plan on bringing in multiple "disadvantaged" families into this single family home, with an organization called Family Promise paying the notes for all tenants. The two of them split the outgoing mortgage payments, utilities, insurance, etc. 50/50. They are then to be paid by Family Promise for all of the tenant's rent. Having multiple families is the only way this could possibly make money for them.

The property currently has equity of $190,000. They estimate that their monthly expenses will be $2300, and that their income from Family Promise will be $4300.

Despite the red flags I see above, this is what really blew my mind...

She put up $55,000 upfront and wired it to the title company. He put up zero. She gets 10% of the monthly positive cash flow, and 10% of the equity. He gets 90% of both.

I tried to tell her that, best case scenario, she is only going to get $200/month back for her $55,000 payment. Equity aside, that will take 22.9 years for her to break even. Factoring in the current equity, it will take 15 years. And this doesn't take inflation into account.

When I told her she got taken, she denied it and got extremely angry with me. She arranged a meeting between the three of us. He constantly evaded my questions as to how she could possibly come out ahead, while he could not possibly lose. When he finally realized I wasn't going to let it go, he answered with the two comments I knew he would ultimately make: "She is getting my expertise and experience" (he's been an agent for two and a half years), and "She agreed to it".

Even now, she still thinks she is going to profit, and that I'm trying to control her by telling her she got taken. Our relationship has now been strained to the breaking point. Am I missing something? Can this possibly work to her advantage and I just can't see it? Am I flat out wrong?

She is continuing to meet with him while he tries to sell her on more of his "deals". I'd truly appreciate feedback from anyone who knows about real estate and/or investing.

Thanks.
If the deal inspired you to ask, it probably is.

Larger scale business is frequently just organized crime, made legal by laws that were rubber-stamped by politicians that have been bought by the perps....
 
We were going to get married this year. We just broke up over this. She resents me for trying to caution her, and defends the guy who ripped her off. It's like I'm living in a surreal nightmare.

You do not want to be married to someone who is this bad with money, nor someone who does not value your input on such matters, nor someone who would let some investment deal or someone else come in between you two. Her decision-making is very poor on several fronts. Run away.
 
We were going to get married this year. We just broke up over this. She resents me for trying to caution her, and defends the guy who ripped her off. It's like I'm living in a surreal nightmare.

Ugh that's disheartening man...

Swindler preying on emotional inheritors to trust them with the new money. Weird that people trust an unknown with $$$$$$ but won't trust someone they planned on spending their life with...
 
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