Many of you reading this will already know that group of Ex P2ers have started our own company. You can read about it at www.VendAsta.com . That said, I realize that you really can’t tell from our website what it is we are up to. There is some speculation in the blogosphere and some initial reports here and here.
So while we aren’t really saying much yet there are a few clues I can give you. We sent four people to Inman New York and were busy for four complete days. Busy as in no spare time. However, “no spare time” doesn’t equate into “no fun”. For example I had a lot of fun at the Google party dominating the foosball table with foos partner Russ Capper. Or, for that matter, getting a great tour of the new New York Times building, which is fabulous (thanks, Andy, Lloyd, Cheryl and Brendan) and then attending their party. Oh, and the two late nights we spent at Don’t Tell Mama with the Inman crew, Lending Tree and the Aussies from realestate.com.au simply can’t be classified as “no fun”. In fact, all in all, the entire trip can be classified by the words fun and success!
So if you guessed that VendAsta was going to have a real estate play, I would say that you were on to something. One more thing. VendAsta is the name of our consulting company, not the name of our real estate initiative. I would say more but I promised Jay that he would be one of the first to know. 🙂
So today, was the first day for the VendAsta crew in a our new space. We are located in a fabulous high tech business center called Innovation Place ,which incidentally, just won an award as one of the best places to work.
Tommorow (I hope) I will post pictures and a bit more about what we are up to.
I think “dominating” may be slight hyperbole:) The amount of fun we had certainly is not though. One of the many highlights for me had to be the tour at New York Times. Amazing building! It is simply alive.
, the nompound idea is not staitc. Like a mutual fund, it can receive additional members and acquire additional properties, perhaps in different climes and with different purposes (beach house in Belize perhaps?). Anyway, to your point, perhaps you acquire the 13 acre parcel with a group of 3-4, and acquire the larger parcel with a second, larger group. Fact is, there are infinite ways to go about doing this. The key IMHO will be the agreement and capital contributions both must be robust, otherwise group dynamics can cause it to fly apart.[201] kettle,I don’t think that financing is verboten per se, but I would want to see a substantial cash commitment and lockup from members. Having skin in the game is the only way to insure that dilletantes don’t later present the group with a lot of headaches. Assuming that you anticipate a pro rata investment of 70K per member and reserve of 10K per member (and there would have to be a reserve, just makes sense), perhaps you insist on 45K (half down, plus full reserve) and finance the rest. I think that could work, and it limits the initial outlay. But it does mean interest expense, and not at 4.5% either, so you have PITI. If the property is self-sustaining (e.g., covering PITI, utilities, expenses, and upkeep) at an acceptable percentage of low maintenance utilization (lets assume 60% of ag/leisure use capacity under leases and periodic vacation rentals of one week or more), and the likelihood of getting 80% or better utilization is very high, then financing would be a safe enough option. Otherwise, I would rather see more investment and less reliance on productivity to cover the nut. One alternative is to have a capital contribution schedule, so that the total investment is paid in over a period of time, e.g., 50% plus reserve down, and 10% per year for 5 years, in addition to any emergency capital calls needed to replenish the reserve. Miss a capital call and the agreement specifies how you get bought out.