BiggerPockets

A better question is what are these gurus really doing. Maybe they really do spend only a few minutes on one particular house and collect a big paycheck. What they're not saying is that they spend the same few minutes (or, three hours) on dozens or hundreds of other houses and make nothing. If they could consistently make $3,333 an hour WHY ARE THEY STANDING IN FROM OF A ROOM BLABBERING? If I could make $3,333 an hour, I'd be working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. I'd make $280K A WEEK! I'd do it for a year, make $14.6 million, pay the taxes, buy a house in Vegas and one in Miami Beach and drink mojitos all day.

Is it possible? Yes, maybe. If you do 100 deals, you are very likely to hit a few out of the ball park. Are you going to find ten possible houses and hit one of those out of the park? Possible, but probably not. If these guys actually did such a deal, then it was because they built up a whole infrastructure and business to be able to do that deal. Its because they waded through thousands of prospective houses, sellers and buyers, did a bunch of much smaller deals and had a few home runs.

Wholesaling is hard. Really hard. You will spend a lot of time and effort and maybe eventually do a deal or two. Birddogging is even harder because you're making a much smaller paycheck and the buyer and seller can easily cut you out of the deal.

You might think about getting licensed and getting a job as a RE agent. Its essentially the same job as wholesaling and briddogging, but you have the law on your side and an infrastructure behind you. These gurus are selling a dream.

I've had numbers like that.... But rarely.

Find a house on MLS, go look at it while having agent write up my offer. Sign with mouse. Make 2 phone calls to sell it, dont really think about it until week before closing. Line up transactional funding. Go to closing. Walk with $9k.

Probably less than 3 hours of work. But it was a huge amount of luck and timing.

Usually its: surf MLS in 2 metro areas for a solid week, make 30 offers, send 130 emails, get one-two, spend next 2 weeks marketing it. Pocket $2-3k. Per hour goes way up at that rate.

so called GURUS just sale information that has not been tested or proven to be right..all hype, they could do such thing they will be the last to share their secrets

don't fall for it..ask for physical prove then you will know better

Originally posted by Curt Davis

Ali, all the guru's have done is find a way to market themselves and sell a product they they are either still currently doing or have done enough transactions to be considered a guru or professional. Everyone always rags on the guru but would love to have their expertise and knowledge but no one is willing to pay for it. Everyone always wants something for nothing. I have purchased a few courses and some were well worth it and some were so so. Everyone always says," just look on this site, its all free here or search the net" but no one wants to actually do that. IF you want to learn fast, maybe a course specific to what you want to do it the answer. If not then continue to get free info and hope people will help you for free. Good luck, its a catch 22

I don't disagree that there are a few programs and educators out there that have the real deal and provide valuable insight and information, however, there are many more who pitch pipedreams to the unsuspecting which is why most of us usally advise caution when dealing with gurus. I would also not go as far as to say that no one does the work to read here on BP to learn for free (other than their time) many have provided praise and thanks to BP and told their stories of success because they did in fact read and get valuable info here on this site then applied that knowledge in the real world.

Also, people reading this quote should be aware that it is the viewpoint of someone who also provides coaching services.

All infomercials are providing a product or service and are designed to get people to sign up. They wont make any money otherwise. If a local investor approached you, someone that you have never heard of, would you pay thousands for his course or bootcamp or would you tend to go more with someone more nationally recognized? People dont have to do anything with guru's or any other product or service. Its just another income stream for them aside from what they are doing but some of them are only selling products now after countless other real estate transactions. Start networking with people in your local area, try the local reia club.

Investing in today's real estate market is hard work, there are a lot of people trying to find houses to buy way below market value. In the Phoenix area investors are coming in from Canada and paying full price at the auction because they know we are at the bottom or close, they know the properties will go up so their strategy is cash flow.

How do you compete with all the professional investors out there? The answer is you don't.

I invest in real estate using a technique called "The Sandwich Lease Option" which allows me to invest in real estate with out using any cash or use of my credit.

I make money immediately, I make a monthly cash flow and I will make profit in the future when the buyer refinances the property.

I am able to pick up the properties everyone else overlooks...It's a GOLDMINE.

Marv Rousselow

I have been investing in real estate for 30 + years in all kinds of markets and have seen all kind of gurus with all kinds of product - come and go. For what it's worth here are my observations.........

1- 80% of the information on investing in real estate being sold ranges from totally worthless to incorrect and or possibly illegal

2- another 10% might work under some circumstances but either the recipient of the information needs a much more educated and experienced background than he is led to believe or the circumstances regarding the success of the method being sold are limited to a certain geographical area or a certain type of market

3- the 10% of information that has value requires work, dedication, persistence, education to be used successfully.

4- Certain types of individuals can self study utilizing free information available online and learn as much or more as any program or course will teach them

5- most gurus are not currently successful using the methods they teach; they may have once been successful in a particular type of market or in a particular location, but they are not currently utilizing the method they teach successfully. This is because most of the "methods" are not based on solid, long term principles of real estate, they are methods that worked for a short period of time due to a market abberation.

6- most people who purchase a course or program will intially defend it vigorisly against any negative comments. only after they have totally given up will they be willing to admit even the possibility that the information is not workable. many will still excuse the guru by repeating platitudes such as "you have to work the program" or "its a good program for the right person". This defense may even go so far as the person who has just purchased the course lying about their success - although they have not closed a transaction. Any opinion to the contrary given by anyone else will result in the accusation that "you are trying to stop competition because you're afraid we will be successful" or "everybody has to start somewhere " and they will tell each other "don't be discourage by negative thinkers".

7- the best education in real estate comes from courses given at colleges and or by realtor organizations or by CCIM. The crazy promises are omitted, the hype is left out, and a truer more rounded picture of the real estate industry is provided. additionally, these courses provide information on the fundamentals that are so neccessary as a base for success - but which are either ommited or glossed over by the gurus selling the latest "get rich with no real estate experience" method.

If a junk email that I use for all the real estate education mumbo jumbo. And I receive about 300 plus emails daily with webinars that promise secrets to niches no one knows and free info then you are being offered $500 programs and website member ships. now if your mailing to about 5,000 people for 6 months straight advertise constantly(which if you don't no is all set on a timer there auto responder trigger automatically), image odds 5,000 people $500 a program if only 20 people join that's $20,000! 4 people is $2,000 that's still good money considering the amount of work you do.

I don't believe wholesaling or any of the other real estate JOBs are dead. Or that its impossible to make a nice paycheck when you close a deal. Or that you might spend only an hour or three closing one specific deal.

I don't even have a problem with someone spending $1000 on a "course", if that course provided real value. Ongoing training is a fact of life in many industries. My day job is high tech and we have a huge training department. There are many third party companies that offer training on our products. And both my company and many others offer consulting services on using these products, often with some pretty hefty price tags.

But I've never seen anything in any of these offerings that shows the trainer on a beach with umbrella drinks and attractive women.

The problem I have with much of real estate training is that its filled with this "quick and easy" hype Kevin is asking about. And its not filled with actually workable techniques. Even if you're paying thousands of dollars for training, if you get information that's actually useful to you to do your job, whatever that job is, its worthwhile. Look at the price of a university degree! If you pay thousands of dollars to be told this is quick and easy and you'll see that for yourself right after I give you a few teasers and convince you to sign up for more training, mentoring, boot camps or whatever.

I was trying to see what 'guru' could stand for... God-UR-Useless - any others out there?