Antoine Martel is a real estate investor and educator who, as of recently, is based in Miami, Florida. In this Antoine Martel review, you'll discover all about Antoine's background and the investment methods that propelled him to success. I'll be giving detailed information on his main real estate businesses and how they work. With one of Antoine Martel's real estate investment opportunities, you can even get started investing in real estate with just $50!
You need to put in a lot of work to create a successful real estate business. The returns may be high, but so are the risks. If you are looking for financial independence without the risks that come with the real estate industry, check out local lead generation. This business model delivers predictable passive income without dealing with all the hassles of the real estate industry.
Looks too good but has 0 guarantees
Pros and Cons of Section 8 Real Estate
Investing in Section 8 has many criticisms. In a video he posted on his YouTube channel, Antoine defends and explains why investing in Section 8 real estate is actually very good. He also talks about this in an interview on his father, Eric Martel's, podcast.
Advantages of Section 8 Real Estate Investment
Disadvantages of Section 8 Real Estate Investment
The Key Points to Look For in a Section 8 Market
There are 2 main things you need to look at when looking for a Section 8 market.
- Median Home Price - The average cost of all houses purchased that month in the city.
- Fair Market Price (FMR) - The amount that the Section 8 program will pay you.
Go to Zillow and search for the median home value in your city. Next, determine what county the city is in and Google its fair market rents. This is how you'll find the profit margins for Section 8 rentals in your market. The Section 8 program will typically pay 75–85% of the FMR. Every city and country has a different pay rate.
You need to find the areas where you can buy the cheapest houses to maximize profits. Avoid areas with a high crime rate and rough neighborhoods. Finding property management with good Section 8 experience and a good relationship with Section 8 authorities will also benefit you.
Best Cities for Section 8 Investment
In the Midwest, most Section 8 programs pay $1,000 to $1,600 in rent for 3-bedroom houses. 3-bedroom houses in many areas of the Midwest may cost anywhere from $65,000 to $85,000.
Antoine mentions 2 cities as his best picks for Section 8 rentals.
- Cleveland, Ohio - The population decline has slowed down. Cleveland's real estate market has been appreciating. Cleveland Clinic continuously improves roads, infrastructure, hospitals, and office space, which contributes to the rising real estate value.
- Detroit, Michigan - best place to find pure cash flow deals. There are lots of locations near great areas. Section 8 housing is in high demand due to 30% of families falling below the 30% income line.
Single family rental property is recommended for beginners as they have lower risks and are cheaper with lower down payment. They are also easier to find financing for. Tenants also take care of the property and pay for all the utilities.
Check out Section 8 Secrets by Tom Cruz, who, compared to Antoine's out-of-state approach, specializes in Section 8 rentals in your own local area. Alternatively, you can check out Pace Morby's SubTo mentorship that specializes in subject-to and creative financing.
Who Is Antoine Martel?
Antoine Martel was born in Toronto, Canada, and moved with his family to San Francisco, California, in 2010. After moving to Los Angeles in 2015 for college, he studied entrepreneurship at Loyola Marymount University.
As a kid, he sold plums to neighbors and candy and soda at school. During high school, Antoine created his wholesaling ecommerce business, TRACKL3T, in which he sourced from Chinese manufacturers and sold over 6K bracelets on multiple marketplaces.
Venture into real estate
He got into real estate when his brother brought him and his father to a real estate seminar. A few months before college, his dad funded a deal he found in Memphis. By the end of 2017, they had 10 single-family homes.
Antoine got addicted to real estate investment and started building networks on BiggerPockets. In 2017, they started selling the properties to have the funds to buy more. This was the start of MartelTurnkey.They now flip around 20 houses a month.
He started Shockwave Trucking LLC in late 2020 with his dad and a couple of investors. The company quickly ran into problems and was not as successful as expected. Since then, Antoine has focused exclusively on real estate and created MartelInvest and FlipSystem. Antoine is also available for mentorship calls at $199 for 30 minutes or $299 for 1 hour.
Social media
Antoine is the host of his podcast, "A Millennial's Guide to Real Estate Investing," and the author of "A Millennial's Guide to Investing in Cash Flowing Rental Properties." He has 118K followers on his verified Instagram account and 42.3K followers on TikTok. Antoine is in a relationship with successful actress and singer Soma Chhaya Bhatia, who also works as the director of sales for FlipSystem. Antoine also teaches how to become a Section 8 landlord on his YouTube channel.
MartelTurnkey Review
MartelTurnkey, under the umbrella company MartelZ, is a full service turnkey rental company. They buy houses, renovate, rent them out, and hire a property management company before listing it for sale. The service also helps clients with financing, insurance, and management.
The listings are mostly in the states of Ohio, Michigan, and Tennessee. These properties are all in good neighborhoods.
Pros and Cons of MartelTurnkey
Pros
You will purchase a cash flowing rental property, which means you can start earning immediately.
Their markets are primarily in the Midwest and upper South, which have lower pricing.
If you wish to replace the management company, they can recommend some to you.
They have lenders available to recommend for financing.
Cons
While you can visit the property in person, it is discouraged as to not disturb the tenant.
Your options are limited to their preferred market.
There could be unforeseen issues with the property that can appear in the long term.
What Do People Say About MartelTurnkey?
On the huge real estate forum BiggerPockets, you'll find a mix of reviews of MartelTurnkey from people who worked with them, including clients, moneylenders, and management.
FlipSystem Review
FlipSystem is Antoine's training course that comes with a customer relationship management (CRM). The training and coaching program teaches you the step-by-step process of investing in real estate using various exit strategies.
The CRM was in development for 7 years before it was released. It allows you to automate your business as much as possible without the need to hire anyone else.
Pros and Cons of FlipSystem CRM Review
Pros
CRM that allows automation without hiring anyone.
One-on-one mentorship and weekly group coaching.
Access to a network of investors to acquire funding.
Cons
No price transparency.
The whole "done-for-you" approach to the offer makes it sound too good to be true.
Price
The price would depend on the CRM package you chose.
Refund Policy
30 day money-back guarantee.
What Do You Get With FlipSystem?
Are Clients of FlipSystem Successful?
FlipSystem gives a guarantee of success:
I couldn't find any outside reviews on the course or CRM, but here are some of there are many success stories on their site:
Detroit Michigan Fix and Flip Deal Makes $15,000 Profit
Detroit FlipSystem Client Background and Story
Antoine Martel shows viewers a successful fix and flip deal in Detroit, Michigan by a FlipSystem student (he did disclose the name). The house has three bedrooms and one bath. It was bought for $70,000 and the student spent around $30,000 for renovation. After renovation, the house's value was already $120,000 to $130,000. According to Antoine, the student could easily make a $20k to $30k profit off of this.
How The Flip is Doing Now
Antoine highlights the renovation's quality with new floors, countertops, and cabinets while keeping some original features. The house is semi-finished basement and attic. The flipping process is expected to take about 90 days. Antoine emphasized that his student bought the property just 10 days after joining the program.
Top Lessons Learned on the Challenges Encountered
Efficient Flipping Process: The video demonstrates the efficiency of the flipping process under FlipSystem. It focuses on quick property acquisitions, renovation, and leasing or selling.
Balancing Budget and Quality: A key challenge addressed is managing the renovation budget while ensuring product quality. Strategic decisions were made based on what to upgrade versus what to keep.
Market Dynamics: Understanding the local real estate market, particularly in Detroit, is crucial for estimating the property's value and potential profit.
What's not mentioned in the video: This video did not mention the risks involved in a fix and flip business. House flipping is prone to market fluctuations which could lead to lower resale prices. Flipping projects are also prone to unexpected renovation costs which could reduce profit margins.
Martel Real Estate Token
MartelInvest created the Martel invest token to allow you to invest in real estate on the blockchain. At the cost of $50 per token, you will own a portion of a diversified portfolio. The target return is 12% which is a combination of cash flow and asset appreciation. It will typically take 1-4 years before your investment returns.
There are certain advantages to using cryptocurrency to invest in real estate. The transactions are instantaneous, with very low transaction fees. Transactions done on the blockchain are also transparent. This is a fairly new idea, and it is a long-term investment opportunity.
Other Martel Businesses
Apart from the 3 businesses mentioned, Antoine also has:
Antoine's father, Eric Martel, co-owns the family business, MartelTurnkey. Eric is an active real estate investor in both the United States and Canada and has his own real estate mentoring program called Financial Freedom Fast Track. He also hosts a podcast called "Break Away From the Rat Race."
Is Buying Turnkey Properties Worth it in 2024?
The value of real estate only appreciates over time. Now is as good a time as any to buy turnkey rentals. But before you do, you should know the pros and cons to assess the risks.
Buying a turnkey property that's already rented will allow you to earn money immediately. The inspections, appraisals, title search, and procurement have already been dealt with by the previous parties. If you hire a management company, you essentially turn the business into passive income.
Turnkey rentals have been renovated and sold at a profit. It may take a while to realize an increase in overall property market value. Some of these properties may be far away from you, which may prevent personal inspection. There may have been unforeseen issues that develop in the long run. Finally, you still have to deal with tenants or the management company if you hire one.
Other Methods of Real Estate Investment
There are many methods and exit strategies in real estate investing. Each comes with their own pros and cons. Here are some alternative courses.
The Science of Flipping by Justin Colby is a course on how to invest in 4 different types of properties in 4 different market segments.
Multifamily Mindset by Tyler Deveraux and Ryan Woolley specializes in multifamily properties that also provide funding for deals.
REI Game Changers by James Hodges and Alan Biel focuses on marketing in order to wholesale real estate properties quickly and with high returns.
For short term rentals, you can check my list of top Airbnb courses.
The Best Passive Income Model of 2024
Local lead generation remains my number one passive income business model. Like in real estate, you earn money by collecting rent. But with this model, you don't have to own property or worry about procuring financing to purchase property. You create and rank a site on Google using free tactics such as SEO. You then rent this site to local businesses to generate leads for them.
Starting a local lead generation business is very inexpensive when compared to real estate investment. You don't have to deal with issues that come with tenants, maintenance, policies and regulations, or anything else that comes with real estate. You get to keep almost 100% of the predictable passive income as profit.
This strategy is done in local areas, which means few competitions. You don't have to worry much about updating your site, as it could stay ranked for years. Once you understand the process, you just have to repeat it to scale your business. There's no limit to scaling. With enough sites rented, Local Lead Generation model can create time and financial freedom for you.
I join Flip System early this year, I would like to say they are over exaggerated on they advertisement and whatever you paid have 0 guarantee!
When you trying to work with them and buy their services, they will asking you to pay $15K to join, and you'll have to sign an “Agreement”, basically the “Agreement” is a disclaimer, they don’t take any responsibility on their advertisement!(Scam alert or not? Make your own judgement, I will just keep neutral here and state my experience only)
Their “Exaggerated Advertisement” which only show off the success case but never mentioned about the failed cases (which probably will be count more over the success cases)
1.They promote that most of their clients(Or they like call them “”Student”) make a bout $10K to $30K per deal.
But the reality is they have 0 guarantee on it, you most likely will lose your some money on your deals or spend $150Hr/projects make nothing. During my 6 months using their services, I lose $15K on one deal, make almost 0 on another deal, make $10k on the last deal. I found out, it is worthless to me to invest in this way. I spend $400Hr+ to manage these three projects and end up losing $5K (Plus $15K I paid them, and their service charge of total about $4K), so I lost about $25K and my 400Hr time. It just not working for me, unless I can really get access to really low price deals but unfortunately all the deals they sourcing to me is whatever I can find on Zillow.
2.They promote they will have their agents to help you, their investors to fund you, their contractor to help you rehab the property
Hmm… Isn’t it free to find some agent on Bigger Pockets(Maybe you can interview 100 if you like)? And isn’t it tons of Capital trying to lend money to you? Or millions of worker out there if you give them a project to do?
On my experience, their agent really treat me as a “student”, had very bad attitude towards me, I end up spend sometime on bigger pockets to find some other agents. Their lender, mostly like is a Broker, charges me 3.5% points fees(Why I just not directly contact a lender that only charges 2% points?), their contractor charges 30% more than other contractor in the area, which is main reason first 2 of the deals I did there not profitable (I’m just too native and, trust all the words from their agent…)
3.In their advertisement, they said Martel did over 1,000 flips
I bet that may not be true, but I have no clue, if FlipSystem you wanna sue me on this, let's proof it!
4.They guarantee you, you will have your first offer accepted in first 30 or 45 days I believe
Come on… There are millions of listing in the mid-west region, all their listings are from Zillow… Basically everybody can do that by themself…
The biggest point is, all the houses in these regions are old houses with tons of issues… I bought a house with crack foundation, that fix costs me $12k…(All because I trust the Agent telling me the contractor will help us to do the inspection and we save that $500 inspection fees)
So buying a houses in these regions are really easy, it is just there, the biggest thing is you need to have the team and source to inspect these property and fix the problem on the property.
Unfortunately, in FlipSystem’s advertisement they never mention this part, that’s like putting the inexperienced people into the big RISK!…Which I against the way they operating the business, because people will have more trouble in their life because of these.
Overall there are many “Too good to be true” advertisement they published everywhere, but the reality after I used it, I just felt like not really is what it is sound like. And they will char your money directly from getting your checking number from your bank account, and with the agreement you had with them, it is almost 0% chance you can get refunded. I don’t wanna say anything on that, but from the real process flow, they designed the payment process intentionally to block you from get refund if you are not happy or losing money in the investment…
In summary:
FlipSystem uses exaggerated advertisement but not taking any responsibility on the paid customer. (Which is literally on the contract they asked every client to sign), their services not worth the amount they asking, they don’t have too much stuff besides that you can get from free on Bigger Pockets or Zillow…
I bet not only me who lost some investment in FlipSystem, but the thing is if you post any negative messages inside their Discord Channel, you will either get a delete, block of message or even kicked out of the Discord, that’s what I see from my friend's case, that’s why I didn’t say anything inside their discord group, because it is useless.
Hey Jordan, sorry you had such a bad experience. You have many reasons to avoid investing in physical real estate and start creating your digital real estate portforlio that pays you predictably every month.
Recently was robbed of EVERYTHING… I need to learn how to make money quickly. I've always wanted to get into real estate and vacation rentals. I guess, NOW is the time. I would love to learn more about the lead generation business. Thank you
Hey Lucelenia! Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. If you have questions about the lead generation business model or want more information about our coaching program you can book a call with one of our coaches through this link: https://ippei.com/best/
Always happy to help and look forward to connecting.