BiggerPockets

John,

1. Wade started out with RE investing in the Tacoma WA area. He would buy, fix and then sell with seller financing. His focus was creating a passive income stream.

2. I saw him speak (small group as he was not that well known). His early book was pretty good.

3. During the dot.com era Wade was promoting a stock trading system or materials related to the stock market.

4. He was convicted of some criminal acts related to what he was promoting.

You can draw your own conclusions. I would still read his early RE book(s) but I would question any programs or services that he is connected with these days.

John Corey

Yes, they are correct- he and his wife were sentenced to federal prison for tax evasion and have to pay back millions. Probably not the best source to learn from, unless you want to follow in his footsteps.

Rory,

Are you from Tacoma or living there now?

Wade's RE Money Machine model was based on his experience in Tacoma. It was mostly in the 1970's or early 1980's given when I first heard him speak. My member is fuzzy on the exact dates.

His model worked and was fine. This is long before he got into the dot.com things, advice for stock trading and other things. He went off the rails but the RE model was fine (buy, fix, sell with seller financing rather than cash out immediately).

John Corey

I read Wade Cook's "Real Estate Money Machine" in the early 1990's and it opened my eyes to creative financing. I did my first few deals using his ideas with decent results. I got the book from the library and didn't want to return it, I kept happily paying the late return fees.

I went to one of Cook's seminars and was a bit disappointed that it was all about up sell. My first exposure to a real estate guru. According to Wikipedia, he is currently serving time in the federal detention center in California, for tax evasion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Cook

As Wade would have said, it would have been a "hoot" to have lived in that area. My first purchase of a 2-unit after reading half of Robert Allen's Nothing Down book actually was not "nothing down" because after prorations of rents and other items, I did have to come up with $500! Another Wade phrase, "boo hoo"!

And when I started using Wade's method, I really got into "nothing down" deals. If I contracted to purchase a seller's house on contract and give him a down payment of say $2000, our closing would not take place until I found my buyer who would be giving me say $3-5000 down. Once my buyer was in place, we'd hold a double closing in two separate rooms. The original seller would walk out with his house sold, the new buyer would walk out with a house he wanted. I would walk out with a few thousand dollars and probably at least a $100+ monthly cash flow off of the house, and my attorney would collect his $250 ( I brought him a lot of business, so he gave me a nice discount) and be shaking his head wondering how I kept doing it. Bless his late soul, he even did me a favor when my wife filed for divorce in late 1995, he put his fee on my next closing so I could write it off. My attorney was a great guy and really did not handle divorces and really did not want to do mine because my exwife was a former student of his in high school. Tom, my attorney, used to pitch for, I believe, Florida State.

lpotter