Fortune Builders or Renatus - beginner looking to get started

[Luis Barrios]

My wife and I are planning to invest in our first property in the next month or so. We will either purchase a property at an auction or do a short sale, etc. We are new at this and since we are doing this with out a realtor or other partners we lack access to contracts, forms, procedures and legal paperwork needed for our first deal.

We know that we want to purchase a property using either a hard money loan or a private lender, rehab it and list is as an airbnb in Providence, RI (where we currently live). After that, will will refinance with a bank and take the lump sum and repair (essential BRRRRing the property). We are extremely confident in the Airbnb model as it has worked for us in our current home for the past year (we own a 2-family home and list the 2nd apartment as a short-term rental).

My wife and I both attended a Fortune Builders workshop last year and where inclined to invest in their Jumpstart program simply for the access to the contracts, forms, legal procedures and their back-end-office system. We also have a friend who invested in the Essentials program thorough Renatus, which essentially offers the same but at $2k investment instead of $9K with Fortune Builders.

Do any of you have any experience with either programs? Is one better than the other? Are they different? And the most important question: Is there any way to get access to these forms, contracts, legal procedures for our first deal, for free or for less than the $2k-$9k investment?

Thank you all so much for your input!

[Anthony Thompson]

@Luis Barrios one of the podcasts I listen to regularly speaks favorably of Renatus, and I know people who teach for Fortune Builders.

In both cases, when I meet with new investors, I usually tell them, the money you spent was probably not bad, but please do not spend any more, and especially don't sign up for anything with a monthly fee (which is like walking around with an open financial wound each month).

You can usually get just as much information by networking with other investors and asking good questions of an attorney or accountant, whose answers will be customized to your specific needs and situation. And honestly, even if you spent two hours with each (an attorney and CPA) would probably still cost you far less than one of those programs.

I do want to add, since you mentioned auctions, that if you are a beginner I would strongly urge you to be cautious and perhaps reconsider the auction route. It is really not for beginners. The litmus test (in my mind anyway) is, if you are not comfortable doing your own title search (yourself) on a property you're considering bidding on at auction, and fully understanding what you find in that title search, you probably shouldn't be bidding on that property.

Buying a short sale or even REO (bank-owned property, where the bank has already foreclosed, now owns it, and is selling it) are both far better options than a foreclosure auction itself. Though even in the case of REO you want to be careful and read those contracts/agreements carefully (including the terms of the listing agreement) since banks almost always have their own addendums which explicitly override "standard" RI real estate terms, so you want to read it all and probably have your attorney read it all too, before you sign anything on a bank-owned property.

(As an example, it's common to see something saying that if there's a delay in closing because of something on your end, you'll get charged a steep per-day penalty, but if it's a delay due to something on their end, there's no penalty whatsoever - they can usually string you along for months and keep your deposit tied up, with no consequence.)