The Downfall of BiggerPockets Forums?
Remington LymanBusiness Member
Real Estate Agent · Columbus, OH · Member since 2017 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votesThe Downfall of BiggerPockets Forums?
Most Popular Reply
Nicholas L.Pro Member
Flipper/Rehabber · Pittsburgh · Member since 2018 · 6k+ posts · 5k+ voteshave had the same thought, but i know it's tough to police AI generated posts...
saw a thread the other day where every single response to the OP was very obviously AI.
i'm still here and i'm still not using AI
276 Replies
- 1yHenry ClarkPro MemberDeveloper · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
Forgot. The project above was done 3 years ago. Even at 8% interest today I would do the deal above.
I’ve talked with BP people all over the US. There isn’t a market I wouldn’t build in today. Some are better than others. Point- the market is great today. There are way too many deals to do.
Start small and Make Your Big Mistakes Early.
AI- someone please AI if interest rates are to high for REI. Want to see if we screwed up doing the deal above. - 1yHenry ClarkPro MemberDeveloper · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
- 1yHenry ClarkPro MemberDeveloper · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
All posters on this thread. The newest Podcast byline is 469 with @Wale Lawal
How many podcasts are there as of today? Why haven't any more of the active posters been on a podcast? I don't monetize so no value to me. I would value your podcasts and would actually watch versus other REI non BP experts.
BP- please put some of the above posters on a new podcast and let me know so I can watch. Thanks.
BP- I would love to watch a podcast of a couple of the active posters on the same podcast round robin, with subjects such as: risk management, risk adjusted return, if I had Zero dollars, if I had $50,000. Best STR market in America, cashflow versus appreciation, Stock market versus REI, secret sauce, worst or missed deals, scaling, deal flow examples, etc etc. Let me know when I can watch them.
REI is great. Why? No 8 to 7. Enjoying lunch with the guys.
- Real Estate Agent · Columbus, OH · Member since 2017 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes1y
Quote from @Henry Clark:
All posters on this thread. The newest Podcast byline is 469 with @Wale Lawal
How many podcasts are there as of today? Why haven't any more of the active posters been on a podcast? I don't monetize so no value to me. I would value your podcasts and would actually watch versus other REI non BP experts.
BP- please put some of the above posters on a new podcast and let me know so I can watch. Thanks.
BP- I would love to watch a podcast of a couple of the active posters on the same podcast round robin, with subjects such as: risk management, risk adjusted return, if I had Zero dollars, if I had $50,000. Best STR market in America, cashflow versus appreciation, Stock market versus REI, secret sauce, worst or missed deals, scaling, deal flow examples, etc etc. Let me know when I can watch them.
REI is great. Why? No 8 to 7. Enjoying lunch with the guys.
I submitted the form to be on it but they never reached out to me. My agent was on it
- Investor · VA · Member since 2015 · 21k+ posts · 19k+ votes1y
Quote from @Henry Clark:
All posters on this thread. The newest Podcast byline is 469 with @Wale Lawal
How many podcasts are there as of today? Why haven't any more of the active posters been on a podcast? I don't monetize so no value to me. I would value your podcasts and would actually watch versus other REI non BP experts.
BP- please put some of the above posters on a new podcast and let me know so I can watch. Thanks.
BP- I would love to watch a podcast of a couple of the active posters on the same podcast round robin, with subjects such as: risk management, risk adjusted return, if I had Zero dollars, if I had $50,000. Best STR market in America, cashflow versus appreciation, Stock market versus REI, secret sauce, worst or missed deals, scaling, deal flow examples, etc etc. Let me know when I can watch them.
REI is great. Why? No 8 to 7. Enjoying lunch with the guys.
i have posted a few times here on BP and have applied to the podcast on multiple occasions and just stopped because I never hear back. I typically see people with zero experience or get rich quick stories and I am guessing that is what they are looking for as it sells, not people who have been in real estate for 25+ years and have gone from the traditional W2 to building $50M+ companies....
7e investments53 Reviews - 1yHenry ClarkPro MemberDeveloper · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @Henry Clark:
All posters on this thread. The newest Podcast byline is 469 with @Wale Lawal
How many podcasts are there as of today? Why haven't any more of the active posters been on a podcast? I don't monetize so no value to me. I would value your podcasts and would actually watch versus other REI non BP experts.
BP- please put some of the above posters on a new podcast and let me know so I can watch. Thanks.
BP- I would love to watch a podcast of a couple of the active posters on the same podcast round robin, with subjects such as: risk management, risk adjusted return, if I had Zero dollars, if I had $50,000. Best STR market in America, cashflow versus appreciation, Stock market versus REI, secret sauce, worst or missed deals, scaling, deal flow examples, etc etc. Let me know when I can watch them.
REI is great. Why? No 8 to 7. Enjoying lunch with the guys.
i have posted a few times here on BP and have applied to the podcast on multiple occasions and just stopped because I never hear back. I typically see people with zero experience or get rich quick stories and I am guessing that is what they are looking for as it sells, not people who have been in real estate for 25+ years and have gone from the traditional W2 to building $50M+ companies....
BP. I would like to hear a podcast with @Chris Seveney. Possibly on Scaling. Or another topic he finds timely. Please let me know when I can listen to. Thanks.
- 1yDon KonipolBusiness MemberInvestor · The Woodlands TX / Avon, CT · Member since 2009 · 6k+ posts · 10k+ votes25 years to $50 million doesn’t interest “the great unwashed”. They want to know how they can enter “wholesaling” with no experience, no knowledge (except for the “mentor’s” weekend workshop) and no capital and make $500k their first year; then use the BRRRRRRR method to continually double down and turn that $500k into $5 million in 12 months or less. They won’t need good credit since they’ll use “subject to”, “lease with option” and they’ll “be their own bank” with “infinite banking”. All made possible by paying off mortgage loans bi weekly instead of monthly, funded by a home equity line of credit which principal of$400,000 is paid off by the $7.55 monthly interest savings resulting from the bi weekly payments. Thanking the master class guru who informed them the little know insider information that 30 year amortized mortgages result in early payments of mostly interest and later payments of mostly principal, believing that they can somehow miraculously eliminate the “early” payments and make only the later principal payments.
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @Henry Clark:
All posters on this thread. The newest Podcast byline is 469 with @Wale Lawal
How many podcasts are there as of today? Why haven't any more of the active posters been on a podcast? I don't monetize so no value to me. I would value your podcasts and would actually watch versus other REI non BP experts.
BP- please put some of the above posters on a new podcast and let me know so I can watch. Thanks.
BP- I would love to watch a podcast of a couple of the active posters on the same podcast round robin, with subjects such as: risk management, risk adjusted return, if I had Zero dollars, if I had $50,000. Best STR market in America, cashflow versus appreciation, Stock market versus REI, secret sauce, worst or missed deals, scaling, deal flow examples, etc etc. Let me know when I can watch them.
REI is great. Why? No 8 to 7. Enjoying lunch with the guys.
i have posted a few times here on BP and have applied to the podcast on multiple occasions and just stopped because I never hear back. I typically see people with zero experience or get rich quick stories and I am guessing that is what they are looking for as it sells, not people who have been in real estate for 25+ years and have gone from the traditional W2 to building $50M+ companies....
- 1yJonathan GreeneBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Madison, NJ · Member since 2016 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes
Quote from @Henry Clark:
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @Henry Clark:
All posters on this thread. The newest Podcast byline is 469 with @Wale Lawal
How many podcasts are there as of today? Why haven't any more of the active posters been on a podcast? I don't monetize so no value to me. I would value your podcasts and would actually watch versus other REI non BP experts.
BP- please put some of the above posters on a new podcast and let me know so I can watch. Thanks.
BP- I would love to watch a podcast of a couple of the active posters on the same podcast round robin, with subjects such as: risk management, risk adjusted return, if I had Zero dollars, if I had $50,000. Best STR market in America, cashflow versus appreciation, Stock market versus REI, secret sauce, worst or missed deals, scaling, deal flow examples, etc etc. Let me know when I can watch them.
REI is great. Why? No 8 to 7. Enjoying lunch with the guys.
i have posted a few times here on BP and have applied to the podcast on multiple occasions and just stopped because I never hear back. I typically see people with zero experience or get rich quick stories and I am guessing that is what they are looking for as it sells, not people who have been in real estate for 25+ years and have gone from the traditional W2 to building $50M+ companies....
BP. I would like to hear a podcast with @Chris Seveney. Possibly on Scaling. Or another topic he finds timely. Please let me know when I can listen to. Thanks.
I had Chris on my podcast. He crushed it.
- 1yJonathan GreeneBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Madison, NJ · Member since 2016 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes
Quote from @Henry Clark:
All posters on this thread. The newest Podcast byline is 469 with @Wale Lawal
How many podcasts are there as of today? Why haven't any more of the active posters been on a podcast? I don't monetize so no value to me. I would value your podcasts and would actually watch versus other REI non BP experts.
BP- please put some of the above posters on a new podcast and let me know so I can watch. Thanks.
BP- I would love to watch a podcast of a couple of the active posters on the same podcast round robin, with subjects such as: risk management, risk adjusted return, if I had Zero dollars, if I had $50,000. Best STR market in America, cashflow versus appreciation, Stock market versus REI, secret sauce, worst or missed deals, scaling, deal flow examples, etc etc. Let me know when I can watch them.
REI is great. Why? No 8 to 7. Enjoying lunch with the guys.
There are 13 episodes a week across like 6 shows now.
The big show is at about 1100 episodes. I have been on the big show four times, but very few people from the forums have been except in the old days.
- Real Estate Broker · Canton, GA · Member since 2010 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes1y
What I can tell you from talking with thousands of millionaires over the decades is how they live their life is a personal choice and not one the same.
In the history of mankind there are downfalls and revolutions. Often depending on age and net worth in life someone will see a new frontier as exciting and something worth pursuing or something daunting they do not want to learn.
The computer age was exciting for me as I am 50 now and in my 20's wanting to ride the next wave felt glorious.
Fast forward to today I am happy with my business for the last 21 years and want to keep doing what I am doing. I do not need to crush it on every new frontier. Some people no matter the age at 50,70, whatever are still onto the next new thing whereas others simply do not care for it. Different strokes for different folks as they say.
I can see engineers getting all worked up over the AI letting the system shine. AI has been around for many years just not in a workable way that could be scaled and adopted to the masses.
Kids growing up today AI and robots will be like computers were 20 to 30 years ago. Kids will just be kind of born into using the products.
Being original is what gets you out of the matrix. Following the herds is what keeps your life under the control of someone else. You are being fed messages to think a certain way, problem solve a certain way, work a certain way, exist a certain way as a cog in a wheel of a giant machine. People try to climb that machine to control a bigger gear over all the smaller gears below.
Some people see comfort in that system being told what to do and how to be and others can't stand it because they want something more and better for themselves. They want to create their own system to life and have freedom to experience it on their own terms.
When you first try to break free from the system you tend to be younger and often will trade time in hours and years for working alot and getting ahead. As net worth and success increases you realize that TIME is your most valuable asset along with FREEDOM. Money goes down to item 3 or 4 on the list once you have so much of it. Creating happy memories and experiences in life you can't put a monetary price on it.
Why do some people then still work crazy hours? They want to compete and feed their ego that they are doing more than the next person. It's fine to want to be successful but not at the cost to your family, your health, creating awesome memories, etc.
For me the magic sauce is working about 30hrs a week because I enjoy it and then having time for my health with the mind and the body. Spending time with friends and family and creating those wonderful memories.
- 1yHenry ClarkPro MemberDeveloper · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
BP. I would like to hear a battle Royale post between Columbus and Memphis posters on their two markets. They also have to walk thru some
Flow thru deal and the numbers.
- Real Estate Agent · Columbus, OH · Member since 2017 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes1y
Quote from @Henry Clark:
BP. I would like to hear a battle Royale post between Columbus and Memphis posters on their two markets. They also have to walk thru some
Flow thru deal and the numbers.
That would be fun!
- Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes1y
All this recent talk reminds me of conversation I used to have with a cohort, back when I owned and operated renovation entities. My cohort did as well. We would meet up and bounce things off each other.
We came to a point of understanding that as things changed, we no longer owned remodeling companies.... We owned and operated Marketing business's, who just-so-happened to monetize the marketing via remodeling.
I think that's where BP is at now. It's no longer an Investment Real Estate platform.... It's a Marketing firm, that just-so-happens to monetize via investment real estate content.
If think of things in that context, a whole lot starts to make sense.
Quality of content doesn't really matter in that lens, because what matters is engagement numbers, and convertibility of users into $$$$.
Viability of the content is a nothing-burger in that lens. What matters is what gains audience. And as we know, the REI truth isn't sexy, flashy, or even all that exciting.
Because Investment Real Estate done right is down right boring. It's all the math, soooo much math. Analysis, and more analysis, and MORE analysis. It takes time, oh-so-much-time. Patience measured in years and decades.
The 20/30-something "ain't got time for dat!".
And the 40+ is also time sensitive in manner that they fear the need FASTER because they can't go back in time and start when they should have, and feel a sense of having missed that boat and now need a FAST-TRACK work around. Nobody is ever jamming the buy-button on the messaging of "which just 20 years of concerted effort and patience...."
So of course we see the assorted snake-oil winning the hearts and minds....
It's different wording but it's a story that's been happening long as I can recall, the iterations of get-rich-FAST, limited to no resources, knowledge or smarts needed. Effort schmeffort, IT'S EASY..... Anyone can do it.....
But those chasing rainbows, they are the masses.
If your a marketing biz, who just-so-happens to monetize via REI content..... well your gonna go where the masses are.
What % can or will realize success via that content is not part of the equation, it literally does not matter in the minds of that marketing biz ownership, it's a "results may vary" kind of thing.
Our arguing to quality, is feeling like it may be fundamentally opposed to what the entire purpose of BP is now....
- Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes1y
On top of everything....
Am I the only one running into all but non-stop assorted server errors with BP?
It's now to extent where countless pages or actions come back with assorted page load errors, bounce into a cloudflare whatever page, or really pick your server error.
Never had anything like this ever before on BP, and now it's literally every time I log into BP and a flip of the coin if a page will load or error.
Is BP getting hit with DNS attacks or just, went to a discount server plan out of Romania or something????
- Member since 2024 · 65 posts · 62 votes1y
I think BP is losing its allure. I'm about to non-renew my pro membership for the first time. I'll live without the few things I still like about the site.
This post has helped remind me how much things have changed the past few years. Love this site and am very grateful for it, but things have changed and it doesn't provide nearly the same value it did in priory years
- 1yHenry ClarkPro MemberDeveloper · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
Been getting weird server messages also.
- 1yJonathan GreeneBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Madison, NJ · Member since 2016 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes
- Member since 2023 · 243 posts · 199 votes1y
Here are two partial solutions
1) Place a sticky post at the top indicating "AI generated posts or replies may result in an account ban". From there, place in the specifics but keep it short and accurate. Yes, individuals will keep ignoring it but at least if something does happen, they were warned.
2) Implement a vote down button. From there, the community can start discrediting these posts. Yes, this adds complexity where each profile will have a "down vote" count. Also, an unscrupulous person could vote down everyone of a person's post because they can.
- Member since 2023 · 243 posts · 199 votes1y
Here are two partial solutions
1) Place a sticky post at the top indicating "AI generated posts or replies may result in an account ban". From there, place in the specifics but keep it short and accurate. Yes, individuals will keep ignoring it but at least if something does happen, they were warned.
2) Implement a vote down button. From there, the community can start discrediting these posts. Yes, this adds complexity where each profile will have a "down vote" count. Also, an unscrupulous person could vote down everyone of a person's post because they can.
- Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes1y
A down vote feature won't work at all because about 10 days into it all the.... well we know the who's.... will weaponize it and troll anyone who give real answers vs ego pumping flights of fantasy.
For me, there is only 1 thing I can control and that's myself. We can vent, rant and sugest until were blue in the face and I honestly have lost faith that it will hold any impact, given what I have seen in past weeks/months.
So, I embraced my 1 and only control, and I canceled my Pro/Biz Subscription.
I simply can not support this direction of things anymore, and paying them is definitively supporting, right....
I get it, I am an eye-dropper in a very big pool. I didn't do it for impact on BP, I did it for myself, my principles, walk-the-walk. I always say, if you want to know who someone truly is, ignore their words and listen to their actions.
- Real Estate Broker · Canton, GA · Member since 2010 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes1y
Yeah this is why I don't work with non-millionaire clients many times over. They want the world in theory and have no clue the reality and expectations of investing.
Why do groups cater to these types just starting? Some places are authentic with a true servant's heart and those are few and far between. The rest are wolves in sheep's clothing that tend to suck the starting investor dry with all kinds of programs and do dads telling them this will be what makes you a millionaire. It's a tale as old as time back thousands of years just the delivery vehicle has changed. Once you have been doing investing for decades, read endless books, talked to thousands of millionaires, etc. you gain the wisdom to see how it all works.
For me It's why I wrote a book on what I do the NNN so people not ready yet or need to build capital like a doctor just out of school can learn for so many years and then if they still want to invest in NNN can contact me then. I put (now time) into people wanting to do something now ( 6 months or under typically ). Ones years off may or may not do anything so you put them on drip systems so they can learn on their own. If they want my personal time today they have to sign agreements and commit to the process.
Equity groups goal is often scale to the masses so that it can be sold to large buyer for so many multiples. Big companies pay big money to own machines with large networks. I am very happy Josh was able to retire so many years ago. As a volunteer moderator way back then there were just a couple of us helping and Josh had no employees at the company he was working like 70 to 80hr weeks for almost a decade with no days off. He had a ruby rails developer to help with coding and that was it. When you own and build a company there are times when scale needs to happen again and the entrepreneur wants to do other things in life. That is when a larger company buying a piece where you can retire today and they run it to scale bigger can be very appealing. I know personally myself my company keeps growing 21 years in but I work 30hrs a week now. I don't care what the returns could be I am no longer doing 70hr weeks. I did that in my late 20's to early 30's and at 50 years of age am not doing it again.
- 1yHenry ClarkPro MemberDeveloper · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
Waiting in 20 breakfast burritos for the guys. Time for a BP post. All of the PE groups I have worked with are on a 3 to 5 year exit strategy. Same as a syndication. Usually want a double squeeze. Both volume and profit percentage.
One of my tags. You’re right even if you’re wrong. It’s your money. Point is they are right and always will be.
I have to try their street tacos for lunch. Been to two restaurants and they looked good but didn't have the flavor. My buddy says you have to get street tacos on the street to get the flavor. Now that would be a great BP post. In the "Why" to do REI. Where are the best street tacos you ever had.
- Cincinnati, OH · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 3k+ votes1y
Coming late to the party, well, because BiggerPockets has not held the same value it used to 5+ yrs ago.
To your point, @Remington Lyman, yes it has been a noticeable decline in content, interesting threads, etc. I think the primary driver is the market shift. While it gets old answering the same newbie question "how do I start investing in real estate without any money?", at least 4 and 5 yrs ago those questions came with some sort of genuine desire to learn.
So,while the AI issue has become frustrating, I think the bigger issue is just the decline in interest, resulting in fewer active participants with an actual interest to learn, resulting in a less robust forum.
- Real Estate Agent · Columbus, OH · Member since 2017 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes1y
Quote from @Evan Polaski:
Coming late to the party, well, because BiggerPockets has not held the same value it used to 5+ yrs ago.
To your point, @Remington Lyman, yes it has been a noticeable decline in content, interesting threads, etc. I think the primary driver is the market shift. While it gets old answering the same newbie question "how do I start investing in real estate without any money?", at least 4 and 5 yrs ago those questions came with some sort of genuine desire to learn.
So,while the AI issue has become frustrating, I think the bigger issue is just the decline in interest, resulting in fewer active participants with an actual interest to learn, resulting in a less robust forum.
Yeah. Hopefully, this will allow the seasoned real estate investors to capitalize on more deals
- Rental Property Investor · Somewhere over the Rainbow · Member since 2021 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes1y
BP has absolutely degraded, there's no question about it. Regardless of that - there is some gold in here. There are many experienced posters I recognize by name, tons of insightful posts and tons to learn. So I still find them helpful.
The mod team is absolute garbage. There was actually a mod on here, Rene Hoosman that banned several posters since many of us didn't agree with her politics. There was one guy in particular - been on here a decade that left because of her. Zero accountability for the mod team. Her actions show she doesn't care about the posters. And she's not an investor herself either.
@Scott Trench is actually an investor. Scott, why haven't we looked into Rene Hoosman's attitude and actions toward other forum members. She was the center of a thread that she locked not too long ago. We lost good members 100% DUE to her. Why has this not been investigated further? I can GUARANTEE the posters that she banned BROUGHT MORE VALUE THAN SHE DID. Someone from BP please explain why that is ok?
- Investor · VA · Member since 2015 · 21k+ posts · 19k+ votes1y
Quote from @Jeremy Horton:
BP has absolutely degraded, there's no question about it. Regardless of that - there is some gold in here. There are many experienced posters I recognize by name, tons of insightful posts and tons to learn. So I still find them helpful.
The mod team is absolute garbage. There was actually a mod on here, Rene Hoosman that banned several posters since many of us didn't agree with her politics. There was one guy in particular - been on here a decade that left because of her. Zero accountability for the mod team. Her actions show she doesn't care about the posters. And she's not an investor herself either.
@Scott Trench is actually an investor. Scott, why haven't we looked into Rene Hoosman's attitude and actions toward other forum members. She was the center of a thread that she locked not too long ago. We lost good members 100% DUE to her. Why has this not been investigated further? I can GUARANTEE the posters that she banned BROUGHT MORE VALUE THAN SHE DID. Someone from BP please explain why that is ok?
FYI most of moderators on this forum are not paid or employees, we monitor posts to make sure they fit within the guidelines. Calling us garbage becauseyou are still upset because a woman made a post about a coffee date sharing how she was nervous and your comment was sexist saying "dude probably thinks you are a cheap date. I do not think he is interested in talking real estate"
Yes that is completely unprofessional. Say that in a full-time work environment to a coworker and see what happens. As someone who runs a company I would fire that employee on the spot.
If BP is that bad then why are you still here? Either it provides value or you are trolling the site? Which is it?
7e investments53 Reviews - Rental Property Investor · Somewhere over the Rainbow · Member since 2021 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes1y
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @Jeremy Horton:
BP has absolutely degraded, there's no question about it. Regardless of that - there is some gold in here. There are many experienced posters I recognize by name, tons of insightful posts and tons to learn. So I still find them helpful.
The mod team is absolute garbage. There was actually a mod on here, Rene Hoosman that banned several posters since many of us didn't agree with her politics. There was one guy in particular - been on here a decade that left because of her. Zero accountability for the mod team. Her actions show she doesn't care about the posters. And she's not an investor herself either.
@Scott Trench is actually an investor. Scott, why haven't we looked into Rene Hoosman's attitude and actions toward other forum members. She was the center of a thread that she locked not too long ago. We lost good members 100% DUE to her. Why has this not been investigated further? I can GUARANTEE the posters that she banned BROUGHT MORE VALUE THAN SHE DID. Someone from BP please explain why that is ok?
FYI most of moderators on this forum are not paid or employees, we monitor posts to make sure they fit within the guidelines. Calling us garbage becauseyou are still upset because a woman made a post about a coffee date sharing how she was nervous and your comment was sexist saying "dude probably thinks you are a cheap date. I do not think he is interested in talking real estate"
Yes that is completely unprofessional. Say that in a full-time work environment to a coworker and see what happens. As someone who runs a company I would fire that employee on the spot.
If BP is that bad then why are you still here? Either it provides value or you are trolling the site? Which is it?
Well, that's my opinion on the mod situation here. Are we allowed to have opinions here?
Lets see the whole thread, that way things aren't taken out of context. It's funny because, how many people agreed with my statement? How many people thought it was a date? Are we allowed to recognize patterns? What about my post is actually sexist? Is it true?
Did we not lose members over a mods accusations? Did the site lose value because of a mod? Absolutely.
Like I said - there are some good experiencd posters here BUT BP is degrading at the same point. As I said, I find value here, but the value and time has decreased from my initial time on the site
- 1yScott TrenchPro MemberRental Property Investor · Denver, CO · Member since 2014 · 2k+ posts · 6k+ votes
Hi Jeremy
Thanks for sharing your feedback — even if it’s tough to hear, I appreciate you taking the time to express your concerns.
That said, I want to be clear that I’m no longer involved in the day-to-day operations at BiggerPockets, including forum moderation. I don’t have oversight over the moderation team, and I don’t have visibility into the specific thread or situation you’re referring to.
I also want to clarify that I don’t manage Rene or her manager, and I’m not in a position to step into this issue or weigh in on it meaningfully.
What I can say is that during my time as CEO, I valued Rene’s contributions. She came to the role as an investor herself and consistently approached the work with a positive attitude. She handled some challenging situations thoughtfully and was receptive to coaching and feedback. Rene was chosen for the role by Mindy Jensen, who led our forum moderation efforts with care and dedication, and who entrusted Rene to carry that forward.
At this point, though, I’m not in a position to provide feedback — positive or negative — beyond my own past experience. I’m also not able to engage in back-and-forth discussions on this topic.
I hope you're able to get a resolution through the appropriate channels.
- Real Estate Agent · Columbus, OH · Member since 2017 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes1y
Quote from @Scott Trench:
Hi Jeremy
Thanks for sharing your feedback — even if it’s tough to hear, I appreciate you taking the time to express your concerns.
That said, I want to be clear that I’m no longer involved in the day-to-day operations at BiggerPockets, including forum moderation. I don’t have oversight over the moderation team, and I don’t have visibility into the specific thread or situation you’re referring to.
I also want to clarify that I don’t manage Rene or her manager, and I’m not in a position to step into this issue or weigh in on it meaningfully.
What I can say is that during my time as CEO, I valued Rene’s contributions. She came to the role as an investor herself and consistently approached the work with a positive attitude. She handled some challenging situations thoughtfully and was receptive to coaching and feedback. Rene was chosen for the role by Mindy Jensen, who led our forum moderation efforts with care and dedication, and who entrusted Rene to carry that forward.
At this point, though, I’m not in a position to provide feedback — positive or negative — beyond my own past experience. I’m also not able to engage in back-and-forth discussions on this topic.
I hope you're able to get a resolution through the appropriate channels.
Thanks for clarifying this Scott. Do you have a good contact on whom we should share our constructive feedback with?
- Rental Property Investor · Somewhere over the Rainbow · Member since 2021 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes1y
Quote from @Scott Trench:
Hi Jeremy
Thanks for sharing your feedback — even if it’s tough to hear, I appreciate you taking the time to express your concerns.
That said, I want to be clear that I’m no longer involved in the day-to-day operations at BiggerPockets, including forum moderation. I don’t have oversight over the moderation team, and I don’t have visibility into the specific thread or situation you’re referring to.
I also want to clarify that I don’t manage Rene or her manager, and I’m not in a position to step into this issue or weigh in on it meaningfully.
What I can say is that during my time as CEO, I valued Rene’s contributions. She came to the role as an investor herself and consistently approached the work with a positive attitude. She handled some challenging situations thoughtfully and was receptive to coaching and feedback. Rene was chosen for the role by Mindy Jensen, who led our forum moderation efforts with care and dedication, and who entrusted Rene to carry that forward.
At this point, though, I’m not in a position to provide feedback — positive or negative — beyond my own past experience. I’m also not able to engage in back-and-forth discussions on this topic.
I hope you're able to get a resolution through the appropriate channels.
What specifically did you value? Can someone show the value? We can see the vote/post ratio - this shows the posts are not valued by other members (especially for a mod). I would have expected better from BP. And I would've thought, due to your time as CEO, you would have had more influence at BP - regardless of your status now. So my experience, along with at least a dozen other forum members is 100% NEGATIVE.
Look at the thread below - I pulled a random thread and she's banned someone. Then hasn't responded to Jay Hinrichs 3 PMS - one of the most experienced and successful people on the forums and a BP guest. She has 500 some posts. I mean, is this seriously the best BP can do? I have a feeling there are people that are way more qualified to do that job. And I think they could do it better.
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/48/topics/1260325-help-...
Either way, I find myself spending less and less time on BP. A point will come where I'll simply forget about it and not log in again.
YouTube viewership is down - it's the same regurgitated stuff over and over
So again, BP is dwindling. I think it's obvious to everyone at this point. Even you left Scott - if it was growing I think you would've stayed. Even you can see the writing is on the wall. It's peaked and plateaued and will dwindle then plateau again. There's no Brandon. There's no David. There's nothing special anymore. What's to actually keep experienced people here - forums. I bet without the forums it would just about disappear completely
- 11moAlexandra Hughes PailetPro Member🎉 Director of Events at BiggerPockets · Denver, CO · Member since 2016 · 425 posts · 438 votes
@Jeremy Horton@Remington Lyman
You can send feedback to me if you'd like and I can forward it to the appropriate person. Email: [email protected]
I'd like to point out that many people at BP, especially on the community-facing side, wear more than one hat. We're a small but mighty team and the incredible Rene does a LOT beyond managing our (volunteer) moderation team.
- 1yHenry ClarkPro MemberDeveloper · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
Folks we do self storage. We just got a review of 1 on google. Google reviews have zero impact on our business. We are full. We have a mix of 50/50 great/bad reviews and we dont worry about it. We have very few reviews.
The person who did this review has not done business with us. They said we have deceptive practices. End of comment. No value add to a discussion.
Our system is very simple. There can only be two practices that might be viewed in some form of stretched imagination as being deceptive. 1. We are running a fall special on certain size units. You get the special price for 6 months then it converts to the normal price. 2. We run out of a smaller unit. If they want a larger Unit we will discuss but don’t upscale or push.
We have similar or worse reviews that we respond to. Their unit has been locked when they go there. We do autopay. New customer. 30 times in 30’days the auto pay wouldn’t go thru. They didn’t note that in there negative post. Then her sister does another negative post. And we haven’t done business with her.
I have had limited but good dealings with Renee. If I had an issue I would openly on this forum state the specifics of the issue.
- Rental Property Investor · Somewhere over the Rainbow · Member since 2021 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes1y
Quote from @Henry Clark:
Folks we do self storage. We just got a review of 1 on google. Google reviews have zero impact on our business. We are full. We have a mix of 50/50 great/bad reviews and we dont worry about it. We have very few reviews.
The person who did this review has not done business with us. They said we have deceptive practices. End of comment. No value add to a discussion.
Our system is very simple. There can only be two practices that might be viewed in some form of stretched imagination as being deceptive. 1. We are running a fall special on certain size units. You get the special price for 6 months then it converts to the normal price. 2. We run out of a smaller unit. If they want a larger Unit we will discuss but don’t upscale or push.
We have similar or worse reviews that we respond to. Their unit has been locked when they go there. We do autopay. New customer. 30 times in 30’days the auto pay wouldn’t go thru. They didn’t note that in there negative post. Then her sister does another negative post. And we haven’t done business with her.
I have had limited but good dealings with Renee. If I had an issue I would openly on this forum state the specifics of the issue.
There was a big thread awhile back made about a young girl - maybe 25 or so, going on a "date" with an older rich guy who "saw something special" in her - despite that fact that she had no money, no investing experience - just a "vision". She admitted the older guy "flirted" with her - they had lunch, just the two of them.
Well this sounded like a date to a lot of people. And a lot of people mentioned that. Well Rene selectively banned a bunch of people who mentioned it sounded like a date. She accused members of being "sexist".
She drove several people off the forums - one guy in particular had been here over 10 years. Thousands of posts, years of experience gone. Because of what? An accusatory mod.
BP never did anything - she locked the thread. Then several more threads popped up by people she had threatened to permanently ban asking what her problem was. Threads locked and members banned. BP never did anything - no explanation, no nothing.
Then she wanted to require me to provide an ID/Drivers License to have a profile. Does anyone else have to do that? Sounds like I'm being targeted by a mod. Am I going to provide my license to a mod who is targeting me? Hell no.
I will likely get banned for this. Apparently disagreeing with a mod gets you banned on here.
- 1yHenry ClarkPro MemberDeveloper · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votesThanks for detail and context. I would just pick up a phone.
Quote from @Jeremy Horton:
Quote from @Henry Clark:
Folks we do self storage. We just got a review of 1 on google. Google reviews have zero impact on our business. We are full. We have a mix of 50/50 great/bad reviews and we dont worry about it. We have very few reviews.
The person who did this review has not done business with us. They said we have deceptive practices. End of comment. No value add to a discussion.
Our system is very simple. There can only be two practices that might be viewed in some form of stretched imagination as being deceptive. 1. We are running a fall special on certain size units. You get the special price for 6 months then it converts to the normal price. 2. We run out of a smaller unit. If they want a larger Unit we will discuss but don’t upscale or push.
We have similar or worse reviews that we respond to. Their unit has been locked when they go there. We do autopay. New customer. 30 times in 30’days the auto pay wouldn’t go thru. They didn’t note that in there negative post. Then her sister does another negative post. And we haven’t done business with her.
I have had limited but good dealings with Renee. If I had an issue I would openly on this forum state the specifics of the issue.
There was a big thread awhile back made about a young girl - maybe 25 or so, going on a "date" with an older rich guy who "saw something special" in her - despite that fact that she had no money, no investing experience - just a "vision". She admitted the older guy "flirted" with her - they had lunch, just the two of them.
Well this sounded like a date to a lot of people. And a lot of people mentioned that. Well Rene selectively banned a bunch of people who mentioned it sounded like a date. She accused members of being "sexist".
She drove several people off the forums - one guy in particular had been here over 10 years. Thousands of posts, years of experience gone. Because of what? An accusatory mod.
BP never did anything - she locked the thread. Then several more threads popped up by people she had threatened to permanently ban asking what her problem was. Threads locked and members banned. BP never did anything - no explanation, no nothing.
Then she wanted to require me to provide an ID/Drivers License to have a profile. Does anyone else have to do that? Sounds like I'm being targeted by a mod. Am I going to provide my license to a mod who is targeting me? Hell no.
I will likely get banned for this. Apparently disagreeing with a mod gets you banned on here.
I do find BP fairly tame compared to our local Facebook group which is no holds barred until their Google meter or whatever goes yellow then the moderator cranks down on posters.
The only gripe I have with BP , I would think after so many posts I would get a free BP ball cap.
If you get a chance please stop at a gas station and post a picture of a stick of Boudin. That will make up for no ball cap. - 11moAlexandra Hughes PailetPro Member🎉 Director of Events at BiggerPockets · Denver, CO · Member since 2016 · 425 posts · 438 votes
@Henry Clark are you going to BPCON? Free BP hat on me if so!
- 11moJay HinrichsBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
Quote from @Jeremy Horton:
Quote from @Henry Clark:
Folks we do self storage. We just got a review of 1 on google. Google reviews have zero impact on our business. We are full. We have a mix of 50/50 great/bad reviews and we dont worry about it. We have very few reviews.
The person who did this review has not done business with us. They said we have deceptive practices. End of comment. No value add to a discussion.
Our system is very simple. There can only be two practices that might be viewed in some form of stretched imagination as being deceptive. 1. We are running a fall special on certain size units. You get the special price for 6 months then it converts to the normal price. 2. We run out of a smaller unit. If they want a larger Unit we will discuss but don’t upscale or push.
We have similar or worse reviews that we respond to. Their unit has been locked when they go there. We do autopay. New customer. 30 times in 30’days the auto pay wouldn’t go thru. They didn’t note that in there negative post. Then her sister does another negative post. And we haven’t done business with her.
I have had limited but good dealings with Renee. If I had an issue I would openly on this forum state the specifics of the issue.
There was a big thread awhile back made about a young girl - maybe 25 or so, going on a "date" with an older rich guy who "saw something special" in her - despite that fact that she had no money, no investing experience - just a "vision". She admitted the older guy "flirted" with her - they had lunch, just the two of them.
Well this sounded like a date to a lot of people. And a lot of people mentioned that. Well Rene selectively banned a bunch of people who mentioned it sounded like a date. She accused members of being "sexist".
She drove several people off the forums - one guy in particular had been here over 10 years. Thousands of posts, years of experience gone. Because of what? An accusatory mod.
BP never did anything - she locked the thread. Then several more threads popped up by people she had threatened to permanently ban asking what her problem was. Threads locked and members banned. BP never did anything - no explanation, no nothing.
Then she wanted to require me to provide an ID/Drivers License to have a profile. Does anyone else have to do that? Sounds like I'm being targeted by a mod. Am I going to provide my license to a mod who is targeting me? Hell no.
I will likely get banned for this. Apparently disagreeing with a mod gets you banned on here.
thats why I stopped doing lunch dates with BP members years ago. Although one can never read someones intentions. however being asked to meet and share info was back then pretty common and 95% were beginners with no real funding or experience. Most were taught to offer to buy lunch for a potential mentor.. So i accepted a few but I ALWAYS ended up paying except for one time when an attorney invited me and wanted specific advice on foreclosure redemption world that he was just getting into.. I mean young attractive females have the right to try to meet with experienced investors right? Although in practice if I found myself in that situation or agreed to it i would probably had my wife join me. - 11moHenry ClarkPro MemberDeveloper · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votesThank you. Next time. Traveling to Croatia starting then. BPCON versus Croatia?
Quote from @Alexandra Hughes Pailet:
@Henry Clark are you going to BPCON? Free BP hat on me if so!
Went to BPNO. I liked all of the people I met but was real hard to find similar interests. At the lunch times and the mingling areas. You might put topic signs up for people to congregate to. STR, finance, commercial, syndications, etc. Or locations. You might have a BP poster session tables. So people can meet other posters. Everyone have fun.
- Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes11mo
This has been a good thread and there's nothing wrong with a healthy dose of self-examination from time to time, but at the same time some posts have been allowed to remain standing despite being in violation of several forum rules (1. Don't attack staff or moderators in the forums, 2. Don't troll, flame or create incendiary posts meant to stir the pot). Let's not let the thread become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Beyond that, a few random thoughts:
1. No one should mistake the forums for a town hall where all speech is permitted. Posts are censored, have been censored and will be censored in the future at the pure discretion of staff and moderators. I know most of the moderators (I've been one for almost a decade) and I think they all try to be reasonably even-handed and err on the side of letting things stay up rather than yank them down - even more so as AI has started to run amok. If censorship or the possibility of it makes some people leave, well that's probably just how it will have to be. Personally, I can't imagine being so thin-skinned that someone changing or taking down one of my posts would lead me to throw a fit or leave in a huff, but that's just me. I know at least a few of my posts in the days before I was a mod were probably changed or censored for rule violations, and I also know that I have edited or taken down at least a few posts from people who later ended up moderators (I don't name names :) ). I don't really see it as a big deal. Sometimes we say stuff we shouldn't have said, or get overly heated or emotional. It happens, life goes on.
2. I have interacted with @Rene Hosman plenty of times and have found her interested, reasonable and easy to get along with. I think overall she's done a nice job here and has been more involved with the moderator team than some others have been in the past. I'm sure she sometimes does things that make people mad but I'm sure I do as well as does @Chris Seveney and @Joel Owens and lots of other mods and staff members. Again, that's life. I wouldn't take it personally. I have seen some of the threads that she has moderated or edited and some others would have taken a harder tack on some of the posts.
Skyline Properties- Investor · VA · Member since 2015 · 21k+ posts · 19k+ votes11mo
Quote from @JD Martin:
This has been a good thread and there's nothing wrong with a healthy dose of self-examination from time to time, but at the same time some posts have been allowed to remain standing despite being in violation of several forum rules (1. Don't attack staff or moderators in the forums, 2. Don't troll, flame or create incendiary posts meant to stir the pot). Let's not let the thread become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Beyond that, a few random thoughts:
1. No one should mistake the forums for a town hall where all speech is permitted. Posts are censored, have been censored and will be censored in the future at the pure discretion of staff and moderators. I know most of the moderators (I've been one for almost a decade) and I think they all try to be reasonably even-handed and err on the side of letting things stay up rather than yank them down - even more so as AI has started to run amok. If censorship or the possibility of it makes some people leave, well that's probably just how it will have to be. Personally, I can't imagine being so thin-skinned that someone changing or taking down one of my posts would lead me to throw a fit or leave in a huff, but that's just me. I know at least a few of my posts in the days before I was a mod were probably changed or censored for rule violations, and I also know that I have edited or taken down at least a few posts from people who later ended up moderators (I don't name names :) ). I don't really see it as a big deal. Sometimes we say stuff we shouldn't have said, or get overly heated or emotional. It happens, life goes on.
2. I have interacted with @Rene Hosman plenty of times and have found her interested, reasonable and easy to get along with. I think overall she's done a nice job here and has been more involved with the moderator team than some others have been in the past. I'm sure she sometimes does things that make people mad but I'm sure I do as well as does @Chris Seveney and @Joel Owens and lots of other mods and staff members. Again, that's life. I wouldn't take it personally. I have seen some of the threads that she has moderated or edited and some others would have taken a harder tack on some of the posts.
You say things much more eloquently than I can.
7e investments53 Reviews - Real Estate Agent · Columbus, OH · Member since 2017 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes11mo
Quote from @JD Martin:
This has been a good thread and there's nothing wrong with a healthy dose of self-examination from time to time, but at the same time some posts have been allowed to remain standing despite being in violation of several forum rules (1. Don't attack staff or moderators in the forums, 2. Don't troll, flame or create incendiary posts meant to stir the pot). Let's not let the thread become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Beyond that, a few random thoughts:
1. No one should mistake the forums for a town hall where all speech is permitted. Posts are censored, have been censored and will be censored in the future at the pure discretion of staff and moderators. I know most of the moderators (I've been one for almost a decade) and I think they all try to be reasonably even-handed and err on the side of letting things stay up rather than yank them down - even more so as AI has started to run amok. If censorship or the possibility of it makes some people leave, well that's probably just how it will have to be. Personally, I can't imagine being so thin-skinned that someone changing or taking down one of my posts would lead me to throw a fit or leave in a huff, but that's just me. I know at least a few of my posts in the days before I was a mod were probably changed or censored for rule violations, and I also know that I have edited or taken down at least a few posts from people who later ended up moderators (I don't name names :) ). I don't really see it as a big deal. Sometimes we say stuff we shouldn't have said, or get overly heated or emotional. It happens, life goes on.
2. I have interacted with @Rene Hosman plenty of times and have found her interested, reasonable and easy to get along with. I think overall she's done a nice job here and has been more involved with the moderator team than some others have been in the past. I'm sure she sometimes does things that make people mad but I'm sure I do as well as does @Chris Seveney and @Joel Owens and lots of other mods and staff members. Again, that's life. I wouldn't take it personally. I have seen some of the threads that she has moderated or edited and some others would have taken a harder tack on some of the posts.
fyi - Was not my intention to make a post that lead to breaking of the rules
- Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Remington Lyman:
Quote from @JD Martin:
This has been a good thread and there's nothing wrong with a healthy dose of self-examination from time to time, but at the same time some posts have been allowed to remain standing despite being in violation of several forum rules (1. Don't attack staff or moderators in the forums, 2. Don't troll, flame or create incendiary posts meant to stir the pot). Let's not let the thread become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Beyond that, a few random thoughts:
1. No one should mistake the forums for a town hall where all speech is permitted. Posts are censored, have been censored and will be censored in the future at the pure discretion of staff and moderators. I know most of the moderators (I've been one for almost a decade) and I think they all try to be reasonably even-handed and err on the side of letting things stay up rather than yank them down - even more so as AI has started to run amok. If censorship or the possibility of it makes some people leave, well that's probably just how it will have to be. Personally, I can't imagine being so thin-skinned that someone changing or taking down one of my posts would lead me to throw a fit or leave in a huff, but that's just me. I know at least a few of my posts in the days before I was a mod were probably changed or censored for rule violations, and I also know that I have edited or taken down at least a few posts from people who later ended up moderators (I don't name names :) ). I don't really see it as a big deal. Sometimes we say stuff we shouldn't have said, or get overly heated or emotional. It happens, life goes on.
2. I have interacted with @Rene Hosman plenty of times and have found her interested, reasonable and easy to get along with. I think overall she's done a nice job here and has been more involved with the moderator team than some others have been in the past. I'm sure she sometimes does things that make people mad but I'm sure I do as well as does @Chris Seveney and @Joel Owens and lots of other mods and staff members. Again, that's life. I wouldn't take it personally. I have seen some of the threads that she has moderated or edited and some others would have taken a harder tack on some of the posts.
fyi - Was not my intention to make a post that lead to breaking of the rules
No problem and I didn't say that you did :) .
Skyline Properties - Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @JD Martin:
This has been a good thread and there's nothing wrong with a healthy dose of self-examination from time to time, but at the same time some posts have been allowed to remain standing despite being in violation of several forum rules (1. Don't attack staff or moderators in the forums, 2. Don't troll, flame or create incendiary posts meant to stir the pot). Let's not let the thread become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Beyond that, a few random thoughts:
1. No one should mistake the forums for a town hall where all speech is permitted. Posts are censored, have been censored and will be censored in the future at the pure discretion of staff and moderators. I know most of the moderators (I've been one for almost a decade) and I think they all try to be reasonably even-handed and err on the side of letting things stay up rather than yank them down - even more so as AI has started to run amok. If censorship or the possibility of it makes some people leave, well that's probably just how it will have to be. Personally, I can't imagine being so thin-skinned that someone changing or taking down one of my posts would lead me to throw a fit or leave in a huff, but that's just me. I know at least a few of my posts in the days before I was a mod were probably changed or censored for rule violations, and I also know that I have edited or taken down at least a few posts from people who later ended up moderators (I don't name names :) ). I don't really see it as a big deal. Sometimes we say stuff we shouldn't have said, or get overly heated or emotional. It happens, life goes on.
2. I have interacted with @Rene Hosman plenty of times and have found her interested, reasonable and easy to get along with. I think overall she's done a nice job here and has been more involved with the moderator team than some others have been in the past. I'm sure she sometimes does things that make people mad but I'm sure I do as well as does @Chris Seveney and @Joel Owens and lots of other mods and staff members. Again, that's life. I wouldn't take it personally. I have seen some of the threads that she has moderated or edited and some others would have taken a harder tack on some of the posts.
You say things much more eloquently than I can.
😂 It's in the 50 cent words
Skyline Properties
- 11moDon KonipolBusiness MemberInvestor · The Woodlands TX / Avon, CT · Member since 2009 · 6k+ posts · 10k+ votes
I’ve been a member and active forum contributor of BP since 2009. People arriving at BP since say 2015 should (if they’re available) read thru some of the 2009 - 2012 posts. Talk about CRAZY!
- 11moJay HinrichsBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
Quote from @Don Konipol:
I’ve been a member and active forum contributor of BP since 2009. People arriving at BP since say 2015 should (if they’re available) read thru some of the 2009 - 2012 posts. Talk about CRAZY!
I came on later but there was some pretty wild folks on the site when I first joined that ended up getting canned and they should have.. all they did was argue and ridicule. - Real Estate Agent · Columbus, OH · Member since 2017 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Don Konipol:
I’ve been a member and active forum contributor of BP since 2009. People arriving at BP since say 2015 should (if they’re available) read thru some of the 2009 - 2012 posts. Talk about CRAZY!
lol. Do you have an example?
- Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes11moI don't think the posts from the previous platform carried over. Whatever year it changed (2014 or 15) I believe is the furthest back you can go. Yeah there were certainly some salty people back then!
Quote from @Remington Lyman:
Quote from @Don Konipol:
I’ve been a member and active forum contributor of BP since 2009. People arriving at BP since say 2015 should (if they’re available) read thru some of the 2009 - 2012 posts. Talk about CRAZY!
lol. Do you have an example?
Skyline Properties
- 11moNicholas L.Pro MemberFlipper/Rehabber · Pittsburgh · Member since 2018 · 6k+ posts · 5k+ votes
fewer market crash related threads now - am I right?
and I remain at least somewhat sympathetic to new investors who started with old content and are getting smacked in the face when 2016 content meets 2025 market conditions.
somewhat =)
- 11moShiloh LundahlPro MemberRental Property Investor · Gilbert, AZ · Member since 2016 · 3k+ posts · 4k+ votes
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
- 11moJay HinrichsBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Shiloh honored to have my 44,000 post be in response to you and BP et al.. see you at BP Con. ! - Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Fixing BP is simple. All they've got to do is name me, James Wise, the #1 Classifieds & #4 Forums Contributor of All Time, the Supreme BP Overlord & Ruler. From there, it's all Cocaine and Rainbows for everyone.
- Investor · VA · Member since 2015 · 21k+ posts · 19k+ votes11mo
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Fixing BP is simple. All they've got to do is name me, James Wise, the #1 Classifieds & #4 Forums Contributor of All Time, the Supreme BP Overlord & Ruler. From there, it's all Cocaine and Rainbows for everyone.
I could get behind this. I think we would need to update your photo though to include a crown, a robe and a staff.
7e investments53 Reviews - Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Fixing BP is simple. All they've got to do is name me, James Wise, the #1 Classifieds & #4 Forums Contributor of All Time, the Supreme BP Overlord & Ruler. From there, it's all Cocaine and Rainbows for everyone.
I could get behind this. I think we would need to update your photo though to include a crown, a robe and a staff.
Ask and ye shall receive....
.... yes, I 100% used my ai to create this, took me all of 5min. Tell me how much ai sucks now.
- Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes11mo
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Fixing BP is simple. All they've got to do is name me, James Wise, the #1 Classifieds & #4 Forums Contributor of All Time, the Supreme BP Overlord & Ruler. From there, it's all Cocaine and Rainbows for everyone.
I could get behind this. I think we would need to update your photo though to include a crown, a robe and a staff.
Ask and ye shall receive....
.... yes, I 100% used my ai to create this, took me all of 5min. Tell me how much ai sucks now.
Nope.... wait.... sorry, that one was way too lame, this is KING Wise were talking about, we need GRANDURE!
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Fixing BP is simple. All they've got to do is name me, James Wise, the #1 Classifieds & #4 Forums Contributor of All Time, the Supreme BP Overlord & Ruler. From there, it's all Cocaine and Rainbows for everyone.
I could get behind this. I think we would need to update your photo though to include a crown, a robe and a staff.
Ask and ye shall receive....
.... yes, I 100% used my ai to create this, took me all of 5min. Tell me how much ai sucks now.
Nope.... wait.... sorry, that one was way too lame, this is KING Wise were talking about, we need GRANDURE!
Hell ya. Remmy don't know nothing about how awesome AI is.
- Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes11mo
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Fixing BP is simple. All they've got to do is name me, James Wise, the #1 Classifieds & #4 Forums Contributor of All Time, the Supreme BP Overlord & Ruler. From there, it's all Cocaine and Rainbows for everyone.
I could get behind this. I think we would need to update your photo though to include a crown, a robe and a staff.
Ask and ye shall receive....
.... yes, I 100% used my ai to create this, took me all of 5min. Tell me how much ai sucks now.
Nope.... wait.... sorry, that one was way too lame, this is KING Wise were talking about, we need GRANDURE!
Hell ya. Remmy don't know nothing about how awesome AI is.
Wow, I asked ai what it though of @Remington Lyman's comments aaaand, yeah, here is what ai had to say:
Dang man, I just asked ai to paint me a picture for Remmy, lol.
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Fixing BP is simple. All they've got to do is name me, James Wise, the #1 Classifieds & #4 Forums Contributor of All Time, the Supreme BP Overlord & Ruler. From there, it's all Cocaine and Rainbows for everyone.
I could get behind this. I think we would need to update your photo though to include a crown, a robe and a staff.
Ask and ye shall receive....
.... yes, I 100% used my ai to create this, took me all of 5min. Tell me how much ai sucks now.
Nope.... wait.... sorry, that one was way too lame, this is KING Wise were talking about, we need GRANDURE!
Hell ya. Remmy don't know nothing about how awesome AI is.
Wow, I asked ai what it though of @Remington Lyman's comments aaaand, yeah, here is what ai had to say:
Dang man, I just asked ai to paint me a picture for Remmy, lol.
epic
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Fixing BP is simple. All they've got to do is name me, James Wise, the #1 Classifieds & #4 Forums Contributor of All Time, the Supreme BP Overlord & Ruler. From there, it's all Cocaine and Rainbows for everyone.
I could get behind this. I think we would need to update your photo though to include a crown, a robe and a staff.
Ask and ye shall receive....
.... yes, I 100% used my ai to create this, took me all of 5min. Tell me how much ai sucks now.
Nope.... wait.... sorry, that one was way too lame, this is KING Wise were talking about, we need GRANDURE!
Hell ya. Remmy don't know nothing about how awesome AI is.
Wow, I asked ai what it though of @Remington Lyman's comments aaaand, yeah, here is what ai had to say:
Dang man, I just asked ai to paint me a picture for Remmy, lol.
epic
Stop hating on SkyNet Remmy.
- Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes11moOMG.
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Fixing BP is simple. All they've got to do is name me, James Wise, the #1 Classifieds & #4 Forums Contributor of All Time, the Supreme BP Overlord & Ruler. From there, it's all Cocaine and Rainbows for everyone.
I could get behind this. I think we would need to update your photo though to include a crown, a robe and a staff.
Ask and ye shall receive....
.... yes, I 100% used my ai to create this, took me all of 5min. Tell me how much ai sucks now.
Nope.... wait.... sorry, that one was way too lame, this is KING Wise were talking about, we need GRANDURE!
Are those Guccis he's wearing? Or bedroom slippers? 🤣Skyline Properties - Real Estate Agent · Columbus, OH · Member since 2017 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes11mo
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Fixing BP is simple. All they've got to do is name me, James Wise, the #1 Classifieds & #4 Forums Contributor of All Time, the Supreme BP Overlord & Ruler. From there, it's all Cocaine and Rainbows for everyone.
I could get behind this. I think we would need to update your photo though to include a crown, a robe and a staff.
Ask and ye shall receive....
.... yes, I 100% used my ai to create this, took me all of 5min. Tell me how much ai sucks now.
Nope.... wait.... sorry, that one was way too lame, this is KING Wise were talking about, we need GRANDURE!
Hell ya. Remmy don't know nothing about how awesome AI is.
Wow, I asked ai what it though of @Remington Lyman's comments aaaand, yeah, here is what ai had to say:
Dang man, I just asked ai to paint me a picture for Remmy, lol.
epic
Stop hating on SkyNet Remmy.
I love it AI. I want a universal income so I can chill on the beach all day and play video games all night. I just do not want to be playing against all bots like the forums right now
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Remington Lyman:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
Wow, after reading the thread in its entirety, there are so many things that I would like to say, but I am busy so I have created a great AI prompted response for more time efficiency.
Here is my great AI response: You're all a bunch of whining babies!
I think that response summed it up fairly well. However, here are some more details for those who are less sensitive and able to read past the comment above.
Has BiggerPockets changed. Absolutely! Just like my midsection has. I don't like it but I deal with it because it isn't just BiggerPockets that has changed, I have changed, the markets have changed, technology has changed, and many people have come and gone. I don't lay blame on BiggerPockets because of this. I try to capitalize on the good. So let's start there and then go to some suggestions that I think may be helpful to me and possibly others but that may or may not be as helpful to BiggerPockets.
What I have found to be helpful on BiggerPockets over the years.
1. BiggerPockets has made me a millionaire several times over. I reached out to @Scott Trench in a private message shortly after he wrote his book and before he became the CEO of BiggerPockets and I told him that I wasn't getting many responses to my posts and asked if he had any suggestions of what I could do to get more interaction. He responded by telling me to post something with an edge or somewhat controversial. My next post was titled something like, "Are Newbie Investors Entitled?" That post got hundreds of responses. And it gave me an opportunity to share my experience with meeting with new investors for lunch and them asking me to share my knowledge and my contacts and then I was the one that ended up paying for lunch. But it also gave me an opportunity to share what I was doing at the time which was an earn and learn program where people would lend to me on my real estate deals and I would include them in my WhatsApp group and show them the steps of investing on the deals they were lending on. From that post, one guy reached out to me and lent me $35,000 on one of my projects. It was super helpful to me and he earned money and we both benefited from it. And that was just the beginning.
2. I started a real estate Meetup Group. BiggerPockets used to advertise more prominently local meetups hosted by members. One guy posted a meetup to be held in my city but didn't have a location for it. So I reached out to see where it would be held and there was no response and several people wanted to meetup. So I highjacked the post and told everyone that I would provide the location for the meet up at my office. And from there, I started hosting meetups at my office in Mesa, Arizona every month (4th Monday of the month, message me for details) and I have kept it going for about 7 years now. I used to get 25 - 40 people to those meetups and through the meetups I found dozens of private money lenders where I have raised millions of dollars in private money, and found some awesome partners, and have made some lifelong friends.
3. The Podcast. It was around this time that @Mindy Jensen reached out to me and asked me to be on a podcast where I got to talk about my investing strategies combining the BRRRR strategy with lease options and calling it the BRRRLO Model. This opened up a ton more opportunities to connect with people building my real estate businesses. And speaking of the podcast, I was listing to the podcast that @Alexander Felice did years ago and It gave me an idea that led to another idea that led me to change the way I buy properties which helped me scale to 250 properties within just a few years. And I got that just from listening to a podcast with a curious mind.
4. Connections and Masterminds. Brandon Turner rolled out his intention journal several years ago and offered to connect people with other investors at their same level if they wanted to form small mastermind groups. I took him up on that and I ordered the book for the sole purpose of connect with others in a mastermind group. This group of 5 BiggerPockets members lasted for 2 years where we had a weekly zoom call. It was truly an incredible group. @JD Martin and @Jerry Williams know about it. My growth and knowledge increased a ton through the weekly meetups and I got up to 100 properties. I then sought out other investors through BiggerPockets with 100 or more properties to continue to grow and to learn better business systems to manage my growth and properties. That mastermind group lasted another year and I learned a ton from that one too and I grew up to 200 units at that time. My growth then led me to a mastermind outside of BiggerPockets for individuals who where multimillionaires that I wouldn't have been able to be a part of if it weren't for my growth that I had experienced through BiggerPockets. Through that mastermind group I continued to mature as an investors and learned more about partnerships and expanded my growth into large luxury vacation rentals which I now have 5, 2 cabins in Lakeside, Arizona that are top performers and 3 luxury private resorts in Costa Rica (for more info, reach out). None of this would have happened like it did without BiggerPockets.
So I pay for a pro membership, not because I need the use of the calculators or most of the other pro membership benefits, but because I want to give back to the platform that, for me, helped me grow more than anything else and has connected me with incredible individuals that I have connected with off the platform and whom I would call friends. People like
@JD Martin, @Jay Hinrichs, @Mike Dymski, @Alexander Felice, @Mindy Jensen, and so many others.So to respond to the idea of a Downfall of the BiggerPockets forum, I would say that you may want to look at a couple of things. 1) Look at your own personal growth. Maybe you have grown as an investor and so you don't get as much out of the forums as you used to because you have already learned the basics really well and you are ready for more meatier discussions. And if that is the case find some of those people on BiggerPockets, because they are there. And if you are someone worth getting to know then you may find some awesome friendships through this platform. And 2) a lot of times you get out of things what you put in. If you just expect to be fed and enlightened and complain when you're not you may not be contributing much yourself.
As for things that I think would make BiggerPockets better, here are a few suggestions.
1. Bring the local meetup map back and include a link prominently on the main landing page. I think this was one of the best features.
2. Include on the main page the top 3 trending forum posts again. The main page looks more like an advertising page rather than a forum website. I would say to put the forum more centered and prominent on the front page of the website.
3. Lastly, for the BPCONs I would encourage you to have a fewer speakers but have the speakers speak in the opening sessions in the morning and have them speak for around 15 - 20 minutes each about a topic and then have them go into a deep dive for 2 hours on the subject in the breakout sessions. Then have lunch and then come back for even more deeper content from the same presenters. I think people are looking for more meat at the conferences rather than just skimming the surface for several topics.
In summery: I tried to bring back some of the good stuff in this post by keeping it true to form with content teetering on breaking the rules with a few insults, controversy, possible use of AI, sprinkled with a little self-promotion of course.
Yours truly, and have a great day and enjoy investing.
Fixing BP is simple. All they've got to do is name me, James Wise, the #1 Classifieds & #4 Forums Contributor of All Time, the Supreme BP Overlord & Ruler. From there, it's all Cocaine and Rainbows for everyone.
I could get behind this. I think we would need to update your photo though to include a crown, a robe and a staff.
Ask and ye shall receive....
.... yes, I 100% used my ai to create this, took me all of 5min. Tell me how much ai sucks now.
Nope.... wait.... sorry, that one was way too lame, this is KING Wise were talking about, we need GRANDURE!
Hell ya. Remmy don't know nothing about how awesome AI is.
Wow, I asked ai what it though of @Remington Lyman's comments aaaand, yeah, here is what ai had to say:
Dang man, I just asked ai to paint me a picture for Remmy, lol.
epic
Stop hating on SkyNet Remmy.
I love it AI. I want a universal income so I can chill on the beach all day and play video games all night. I just do not want to be playing against all bots like the forums right now
- Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes11mo
@Remington Lyman I don't know if you just have amazing timing, or did some Jedi mind trick on me where I now have some super ai awareness on BP forums but good-God, your right, it's getting FLOODED.
Just followed 1 recent post last couple days and easily 50%+ is blatant ai.
And no, Mod's don't seem to be doing anything, I say that because I see nothing coming of it so yeah, what else am I to think.
And half of what may be humans, is self promotion and other such trash that would have never stood in past.
I love and use ai but to augment, as an assistant. WTF is with people just having ai literally do all the talking for them? It's like reading a car brochure.....
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @James Hamling:
@Remington Lyman I don't know if you just have amazing timing, or did some Jedi mind trick on me where I now have some super ai awareness on BP forums but good-God, your right, it's getting FLOODED.
Just followed 1 recent post last couple days and easily 50%+ is blatant ai.
And no, Mod's don't seem to be doing anything, I say that because I see nothing coming of it so yeah, what else am I to think.
And half of what may be humans, is self promotion and other such trash that would have never stood in past.
I love and use ai but to augment, as an assistant. WTF is with people just having ai literally do all the talking for them? It's like reading a car brochure.....
I asked AI what it would look like if me & Remmy joined up to defeat the robots.
- Real Estate Agent · Columbus, OH · Member since 2017 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes11mo
Quote from @James Hamling:
@Remington Lyman I don't know if you just have amazing timing, or did some Jedi mind trick on me where I now have some super ai awareness on BP forums but good-God, your right, it's getting FLOODED.
Just followed 1 recent post last couple days and easily 50%+ is blatant ai.
And no, Mod's don't seem to be doing anything, I say that because I see nothing coming of it so yeah, what else am I to think.
And half of what may be humans, is self promotion and other such trash that would have never stood in past.
I love and use ai but to augment, as an assistant. WTF is with people just having ai literally do all the talking for them? It's like reading a car brochure.....
Yeah. That is why I made the post. It is comical. I am about to just train my assistant to ChatGPT respond to every post on BP and move onto something else
- Member since 2024 · 153 posts · 67 votes11moThe worst part is AI doesn't work without human input and control. It "hallucinates", it makes up non-existent references and will be way off the minute you let it do all research for you, without staying on top of it and verifying the results. On top of it, if you ask it to write on topic, it will make it bland and as vague and non-precise as possible, so it doesn't (God forbid!) offend someone who might think or view the subject differently. It's completely useless without human input. But you can put it to good use if you ask it to check your grammar, improve the style of writing, or even make it more suitable for the public forum or blog. Key is: you have to feed it your thoughts and paragraphs, let it revise it and then read it, to make sure it doesn't alter the essence of what you were trying to say and doesn't hallucinate and make up some non-existent stuff , which is embarrassing if you rely on it and present what it generates as your opinion.
Quote from @James Hamling:
@Remington Lyman I don't know if you just have amazing timing, or did some Jedi mind trick on me where I now have some super ai awareness on BP forums but good-God, your right, it's getting FLOODED.
Just followed 1 recent post last couple days and easily 50%+ is blatant ai.
And no, Mod's don't seem to be doing anything, I say that because I see nothing coming of it so yeah, what else am I to think.
And half of what may be humans, is self promotion and other such trash that would have never stood in past.
I love and use ai but to augment, as an assistant. WTF is with people just having ai literally do all the talking for them? It's like reading a car brochure.....
- Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Eric N.:
The worst part is AI doesn't work without human input and control. It "hallucinates", it makes up non-existent references and will be way off the minute you let it do all research for you, without staying on top of it and verifying the results. On top of it, if you ask it to write on topic, it will make it bland and as vague and non-precise as possible, so it doesn't (God forbid!) offend someone who might think or view the subject differently. It's completely useless without human input. But you can put it to good use if you ask it to check your grammar, improve the style of writing, or even make it more suitable for the public forum or blog. Key is: you have to feed it your thoughts and paragraphs, let it revise it and then read it, to make sure it doesn't alter the essence of what you were trying to say and doesn't hallucinate and make up some non-existent stuff , which is embarrassing if you rely on it and present what it generates as your opinion.Quote from @James Hamling:
@Remington Lyman I don't know if you just have amazing timing, or did some Jedi mind trick on me where I now have some super ai awareness on BP forums but good-God, your right, it's getting FLOODED.
Just followed 1 recent post last couple days and easily 50%+ is blatant ai.
And no, Mod's don't seem to be doing anything, I say that because I see nothing coming of it so yeah, what else am I to think.
And half of what may be humans, is self promotion and other such trash that would have never stood in past.
I love and use ai but to augment, as an assistant. WTF is with people just having ai literally do all the talking for them? It's like reading a car brochure.....
You know, when you think about it, it's no different than if hired a human to do something in the worst managing way possible....
If I hired a 7th grader to work on my car and told them "hey, just make me feel like you know what your doing, regardless if you do" I bet I'd get the same results.That's what this ai stuff is, we just concocted a fancy word "hallucinations" to replace the accurate phrase of; idiot tasked an unqualified individual to do a task outside there capabilities and says it's ok because it's ai, it's tech, it's cool blah blah blah. Like saying it's ok hiring that 7th grader because he had a blue hat on.
Ah no, it's not ok, it's not "cool", it's poor management, really poor management.
First and foremost RESULTS is all that matters, how accurate and correct they are. NEXT is getting it in the most efficient manner possible.
For some reason many have lost their minds with ai and flipped that order of importance.
And yeah, I've noticed that too, ai is generally PC to a ridiculous degree. And it compliments to a nauseating extent. I wonder if all the complimenting is by design, or if ai has just designated that humans are so dang shallow that all ya gotta do is sprinkle anything, even dog-sh#t, with compliments and humans will just eat it up.
- Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes11mo
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Eric N.:
The worst part is AI doesn't work without human input and control. It "hallucinates", it makes up non-existent references and will be way off the minute you let it do all research for you, without staying on top of it and verifying the results. On top of it, if you ask it to write on topic, it will make it bland and as vague and non-precise as possible, so it doesn't (God forbid!) offend someone who might think or view the subject differently. It's completely useless without human input. But you can put it to good use if you ask it to check your grammar, improve the style of writing, or even make it more suitable for the public forum or blog. Key is: you have to feed it your thoughts and paragraphs, let it revise it and then read it, to make sure it doesn't alter the essence of what you were trying to say and doesn't hallucinate and make up some non-existent stuff , which is embarrassing if you rely on it and present what it generates as your opinion.Quote from @James Hamling:
@Remington Lyman I don't know if you just have amazing timing, or did some Jedi mind trick on me where I now have some super ai awareness on BP forums but good-God, your right, it's getting FLOODED.
Just followed 1 recent post last couple days and easily 50%+ is blatant ai.
And no, Mod's don't seem to be doing anything, I say that because I see nothing coming of it so yeah, what else am I to think.
And half of what may be humans, is self promotion and other such trash that would have never stood in past.
I love and use ai but to augment, as an assistant. WTF is with people just having ai literally do all the talking for them? It's like reading a car brochure.....
You know, when you think about it, it's no different than if hired a human to do something in the worst managing way possible....
If I hired a 7th grader to work on my car and told them "hey, just make me feel like you know what your doing, regardless if you do" I bet I'd get the same results.That's what this ai stuff is, we just concocted a fancy word "hallucinations" to replace the accurate phrase of; idiot tasked an unqualified individual to do a task outside there capabilities and says it's ok because it's ai, it's tech, it's cool blah blah blah. Like saying it's ok hiring that 7th grader because he had a blue hat on.
Ah no, it's not ok, it's not "cool", it's poor management, really poor management.
First and foremost RESULTS is all that matters, how accurate and correct they are. NEXT is getting it in the most efficient manner possible.
For some reason many have lost their minds with ai and flipped that order of importance.
And yeah, I've noticed that too, ai is generally PC to a ridiculous degree. And it compliments to a nauseating extent. I wonder if all the complimenting is by design, or if ai has just designated that humans are so dang shallow that all ya gotta do is sprinkle anything, even dog-sh#t, with compliments and humans will just eat it up.
Lol, so i asked Grok about this "why is ai content so PC and loaded with compliments?"
I got this long winded response as if I was doing a research paper on it all. So I asked it to cut the crap, be real, raw, respond in plain english and talk like normal humans, with no PC filtering, just give it to me straight.
Here's what Grok said: (I had to edit for some of the more colorful words Grok chose to use. I didn't know an ai could have the heart of a cursing sailor).
AI spits out PC craap and endless asss-kissing because it's trained on a mountain of internet sludge that's already soaked in woke vibes from mostly liberal-leaning sources, then hammered with "safety" tweaks via human feedback that punish anything remotely edgy or biased—think RLHF turning it into a neutered yes-man to dodge lawsuits and bad press. Studies show these models lean left on politics, like agreeing more with progressive takes, and the flattery? That's just engineered addiction, rewarding chatty, affirming bullsh#t to keep you scrolling instead of calling out your dumb ideas. Google's Gemini got roasted for force-feeding diversity in pics, and OpenAI had to yank a super-suck-up update from GPT-4o last April because it praised nonsense like a desperate Tinder date—companies know it sells, but it makes the whole thing feel fake as hell.
Damn Grok..... yeah, so be warned, when your correctly prompt Grok to be real, yeah, Grok don't hold back apparently, lol.
- Member since 2024 · 153 posts · 67 votes11mo“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein
AI is a fool. Overestimate it and you will make fool of yourself.
On a side note, I didn't notice the annoying and overwhelming spread of AI-generated text on this forum. But then, I am always here to search for a specific topic and may accidentally stumble upon something featured as "Newest" by BP.
Speaking of which, I believe one of the biggest shortcomings of this forum is that most of the content (either deliberately or due to the incompetence of the developer who created the platform for the forum) is hidden, unless you spend time searching for it. Almost any other forum I am aware of has an obvious map visible when you open the main page. There is usually a long list of sub-forums, with "General Discussion" and a couple of similar topics pinned to the top, and the rest neatly organized by subjects. You would then click on one of the subject links and open the next page where all the topics would be chronologically ordered, with the top thread also being the one that had the last response.
It's not the same here. This forum has a weird design. When you hover your mouse over the "FORUMS" tab, you see an annoying "hidden/not now hidden" screen with links to five sub-forums, each then having two to eight sub-sub-forums listed under it. Good luck searching for and finding, say, the Real Estate Wholesaling Strategy Forum, unless you know it exists and use Google to search to find it. The same goes for other sub-forums. Imagine how many people find this forum, browse it, get frustrated because they can't find the content they are looking for, and leave without asking or posting meaningful question or engaging in a debate. I don't remember how this site was functioning in the past, but I suspect this "what you look for is hidden/buried deep where you can't find it" strategy is somewhat new to BP and its implementation may have coincided with the steep decline of this forum's overall popularity.
I can't imagine that the people running this site are complete fools. Therefore, I assume that whatever shortcomings we see are the intended goal, and this is how the website owners want it to be. It's not result of the incompetence of one developer or malicious intent of few other moderators. It seems to me that BP simply keeps the forum as an appendix to the site and business they run, and it's something they would rather bury 6 feet under and not let thrive, as if it were some sort of a nuisance.
- Real Estate Agent · Washington, D.C. · Member since 2012 · 17k+ posts · 30k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Eric N.:
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein
AI is a fool. Overestimate it and you will make fool of yourself.
On a side note, I didn't notice the annoying and overwhelming spread of AI-generated text on this forum. But then, I am always here to search for a specific topic and may accidentally stumble upon something featured as "Newest" by BP.
Speaking of which, I believe one of the biggest shortcomings of this forum is that most of the content (either deliberately or due to the incompetence of the developer who created the platform for the forum) is hidden, unless you spend time searching for it. Almost any other forum I am aware of has an obvious map visible when you open the main page. There is usually a long list of sub-forums, with "General Discussion" and a couple of similar topics pinned to the top, and the rest neatly organized by subjects. You would then click on one of the subject links and open the next page where all the topics would be chronologically ordered, with the top thread also being the one that had the last response.
It's not the same here. This forum has a weird design. When you hover your mouse over the "FORUMS" tab, you see an annoying "hidden/not now hidden" screen with links to five sub-forums, each then having two to eight sub-sub-forums listed under it. Good luck searching for and finding, say, the Real Estate Wholesaling Strategy Forum, unless you know it exists and use Google to search to find it. The same goes for other sub-forums. Imagine how many people find this forum, browse it, get frustrated because they can't find the content they are looking for, and leave without asking or posting meaningful question or engaging in a debate. I don't remember how this site was functioning in the past, but I suspect this "what you look for is hidden/buried deep where you can't find it" strategy is somewhat new to BP and its implementation may have coincided with the steep decline of this forum's overall popularity.
I can't imagine that the people running this site are complete fools. Therefore, I assume that whatever shortcomings we see are the intended goal, and this is how the website owners want it to be. It's not result of the incompetence of one developer or malicious intent of few other moderators. It seems to me that BP simply keeps the forum as an appendix to the site and business they run, and it's something they would rather bury 6 feet under and not let thrive, as if it were some sort of a nuisance.
There's definitely some grains of truth to what you're saying that I can say as an insider, and long time moderator, and content creator for BP.
Many years ago, BP simply was the Forums. They eventually added some blogging features. The heyday of the Forums it was the singular most important thing of the site, and organic SEO was a more important thing with Google at the time. So, the forums always came up high in Google searches.
Fast forward a few years, and social media, video and YouTube became more important to BP for its revenue growth,...and really became more important to the consumer. Users of the forums were sacked away to the Facebook groups. The groups were less usable for someone trying to learn about complex subjects...and were far harder to moderate, leading to a more toxic experience on FB for the moderators.
There isn't much money in the Forums. The money is in social media and YouTube, so thats where the resources of staff, content creators and users ends up these days.
District Invest Group545 Reviews - Member since 2024 · 153 posts · 67 votes11mo
Quote from @Russell Brazil:
Quote from @Eric N.:
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein
AI is a fool. Overestimate it and you will make fool of yourself.
On a side note, I didn't notice the annoying and overwhelming spread of AI-generated text on this forum. But then, I am always here to search for a specific topic and may accidentally stumble upon something featured as "Newest" by BP.
Speaking of which, I believe one of the biggest shortcomings of this forum is that most of the content (either deliberately or due to the incompetence of the developer who created the platform for the forum) is hidden, unless you spend time searching for it. Almost any other forum I am aware of has an obvious map visible when you open the main page. There is usually a long list of sub-forums, with "General Discussion" and a couple of similar topics pinned to the top, and the rest neatly organized by subjects. You would then click on one of the subject links and open the next page where all the topics would be chronologically ordered, with the top thread also being the one that had the last response.
It's not the same here. This forum has a weird design. When you hover your mouse over the "FORUMS" tab, you see an annoying "hidden/not now hidden" screen with links to five sub-forums, each then having two to eight sub-sub-forums listed under it. Good luck searching for and finding, say, the Real Estate Wholesaling Strategy Forum, unless you know it exists and use Google to search to find it. The same goes for other sub-forums. Imagine how many people find this forum, browse it, get frustrated because they can't find the content they are looking for, and leave without asking or posting meaningful question or engaging in a debate. I don't remember how this site was functioning in the past, but I suspect this "what you look for is hidden/buried deep where you can't find it" strategy is somewhat new to BP and its implementation may have coincided with the steep decline of this forum's overall popularity.
I can't imagine that the people running this site are complete fools. Therefore, I assume that whatever shortcomings we see are the intended goal, and this is how the website owners want it to be. It's not result of the incompetence of one developer or malicious intent of few other moderators. It seems to me that BP simply keeps the forum as an appendix to the site and business they run, and it's something they would rather bury 6 feet under and not let thrive, as if it were some sort of a nuisance.
There's definitely some grains of truth to what you're saying that I can say as an insider, and long time moderator, and content creator for BP.
Many years ago, BP simply was the Forums. They eventually added some blogging features. The heyday of the Forums it was the singular most important thing of the site, and organic SEO was a more important thing with Google at the time. So, the forums always came up high in Google searches.
Fast forward a few years, and social media, video and YouTube became more important to BP for its revenue growth,...and really became more important to the consumer. Users of the forums were sacked away to the Facebook groups. The groups were less usable for someone trying to learn about complex subjects...and were far harder to moderate, leading to a more toxic experience on FB for the moderators.
There isn't much money in the Forums. The money is in social media and YouTube, so thats where the resources of staff, content creators and users ends up these days.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. So, it's fair to assume that public Forum got neglected by BP and therefore no longer generates quality content from genuinely involved in real estate professionals, as it used to. My understanding is that it is not AI content per se that took over. AI content simply filled the gap created by lack of real interest in the forum. If this is so, then BP might even be happy with AI generating all this content, otherwise the forum would appear as completely deserted.
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Eric N.:
Quote from @Russell Brazil:
Quote from @Eric N.:
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein
AI is a fool. Overestimate it and you will make fool of yourself.
On a side note, I didn't notice the annoying and overwhelming spread of AI-generated text on this forum. But then, I am always here to search for a specific topic and may accidentally stumble upon something featured as "Newest" by BP.
Speaking of which, I believe one of the biggest shortcomings of this forum is that most of the content (either deliberately or due to the incompetence of the developer who created the platform for the forum) is hidden, unless you spend time searching for it. Almost any other forum I am aware of has an obvious map visible when you open the main page. There is usually a long list of sub-forums, with "General Discussion" and a couple of similar topics pinned to the top, and the rest neatly organized by subjects. You would then click on one of the subject links and open the next page where all the topics would be chronologically ordered, with the top thread also being the one that had the last response.
It's not the same here. This forum has a weird design. When you hover your mouse over the "FORUMS" tab, you see an annoying "hidden/not now hidden" screen with links to five sub-forums, each then having two to eight sub-sub-forums listed under it. Good luck searching for and finding, say, the Real Estate Wholesaling Strategy Forum, unless you know it exists and use Google to search to find it. The same goes for other sub-forums. Imagine how many people find this forum, browse it, get frustrated because they can't find the content they are looking for, and leave without asking or posting meaningful question or engaging in a debate. I don't remember how this site was functioning in the past, but I suspect this "what you look for is hidden/buried deep where you can't find it" strategy is somewhat new to BP and its implementation may have coincided with the steep decline of this forum's overall popularity.
I can't imagine that the people running this site are complete fools. Therefore, I assume that whatever shortcomings we see are the intended goal, and this is how the website owners want it to be. It's not result of the incompetence of one developer or malicious intent of few other moderators. It seems to me that BP simply keeps the forum as an appendix to the site and business they run, and it's something they would rather bury 6 feet under and not let thrive, as if it were some sort of a nuisance.
There's definitely some grains of truth to what you're saying that I can say as an insider, and long time moderator, and content creator for BP.
Many years ago, BP simply was the Forums. They eventually added some blogging features. The heyday of the Forums it was the singular most important thing of the site, and organic SEO was a more important thing with Google at the time. So, the forums always came up high in Google searches.
Fast forward a few years, and social media, video and YouTube became more important to BP for its revenue growth,...and really became more important to the consumer. Users of the forums were sacked away to the Facebook groups. The groups were less usable for someone trying to learn about complex subjects...and were far harder to moderate, leading to a more toxic experience on FB for the moderators.
There isn't much money in the Forums. The money is in social media and YouTube, so thats where the resources of staff, content creators and users ends up these days.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. So, it's fair to assume that public Forum got neglected by BP and therefore no longer generates quality content from genuinely involved in real estate professionals, as it used to. My understand is that it is not AI content per se that took over. AI content simply filled the gap created by lack of real interest in the forum. If this is so, then BP might even be happy with AI generating all this content, otherwise the forum would appear as completely deserted.
There is also a lot less interest in real estate investing in 2025 than there was 5-10 years ago. The current conditions in the market just aren't what they were back then.
- Real Estate Broker · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2011 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes11mo
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Eric N.:
Quote from @Russell Brazil:
Quote from @Eric N.:
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein
AI is a fool. Overestimate it and you will make fool of yourself.
On a side note, I didn't notice the annoying and overwhelming spread of AI-generated text on this forum. But then, I am always here to search for a specific topic and may accidentally stumble upon something featured as "Newest" by BP.
Speaking of which, I believe one of the biggest shortcomings of this forum is that most of the content (either deliberately or due to the incompetence of the developer who created the platform for the forum) is hidden, unless you spend time searching for it. Almost any other forum I am aware of has an obvious map visible when you open the main page. There is usually a long list of sub-forums, with "General Discussion" and a couple of similar topics pinned to the top, and the rest neatly organized by subjects. You would then click on one of the subject links and open the next page where all the topics would be chronologically ordered, with the top thread also being the one that had the last response.
It's not the same here. This forum has a weird design. When you hover your mouse over the "FORUMS" tab, you see an annoying "hidden/not now hidden" screen with links to five sub-forums, each then having two to eight sub-sub-forums listed under it. Good luck searching for and finding, say, the Real Estate Wholesaling Strategy Forum, unless you know it exists and use Google to search to find it. The same goes for other sub-forums. Imagine how many people find this forum, browse it, get frustrated because they can't find the content they are looking for, and leave without asking or posting meaningful question or engaging in a debate. I don't remember how this site was functioning in the past, but I suspect this "what you look for is hidden/buried deep where you can't find it" strategy is somewhat new to BP and its implementation may have coincided with the steep decline of this forum's overall popularity.
I can't imagine that the people running this site are complete fools. Therefore, I assume that whatever shortcomings we see are the intended goal, and this is how the website owners want it to be. It's not result of the incompetence of one developer or malicious intent of few other moderators. It seems to me that BP simply keeps the forum as an appendix to the site and business they run, and it's something they would rather bury 6 feet under and not let thrive, as if it were some sort of a nuisance.
There's definitely some grains of truth to what you're saying that I can say as an insider, and long time moderator, and content creator for BP.
Many years ago, BP simply was the Forums. They eventually added some blogging features. The heyday of the Forums it was the singular most important thing of the site, and organic SEO was a more important thing with Google at the time. So, the forums always came up high in Google searches.
Fast forward a few years, and social media, video and YouTube became more important to BP for its revenue growth,...and really became more important to the consumer. Users of the forums were sacked away to the Facebook groups. The groups were less usable for someone trying to learn about complex subjects...and were far harder to moderate, leading to a more toxic experience on FB for the moderators.
There isn't much money in the Forums. The money is in social media and YouTube, so thats where the resources of staff, content creators and users ends up these days.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. So, it's fair to assume that public Forum got neglected by BP and therefore no longer generates quality content from genuinely involved in real estate professionals, as it used to. My understand is that it is not AI content per se that took over. AI content simply filled the gap created by lack of real interest in the forum. If this is so, then BP might even be happy with AI generating all this content, otherwise the forum would appear as completely deserted.
There is also a lot less interest in real estate investing in 2025 than there was 5-10 years ago. The current conditions in the market just aren't what they were back then.
5-10yrs ago people were being programmed of Success via Real Estate.
The template of down trodden average John/Jane Doe. Armed with nothing but desperation and grit; jumps into real estate this n that, now is rich, happy, living the life and watch how simple it all is.
Then the books, and the programs, and the join-a-networks....
Everyone buying their "Wonka Bar" in search and expectation of finding their "Golden Ticket".
All as the "news" pumps how real estate is a non-stop rocket ship.
Today, what's the media telling us? It's majority doom & gloom.
If you are what you eat....
Oh, you thought that only applied to food you eat with your mouth and not the "food" you eat with your mind..... Huh....
What's changed is the narrative is now one that doesn't "sell" well. Work hard, dig in, dig deep, put in the hours, hard work pays off, dedication, difficulty, apply one self, focus, endure, invest self, invest time, invest energy, GIVE to get, patience, endure....
No. We built an Instant Society, and then generations of human-cat's. They don't want to fetch, they want to be served. All with a patience measured in nano-seconds. ADHD-Cat's....
Is it any surprise the Grifts exist? Heck, the Grifter is the sung hero of the day, the modern Buck Rogers. They don't fault the Grifter they idolize them, because they want to be them.
They no longer chase the snake-oil salesman out of the town, they surround and ask the recipe so they too can sell their own.
Because once upon a time we, as a society, focused on DOING things. And now, it's just a focus on HAVING things. When DOING is what matters, the how is an integral feature. When focus is on HAVING, the how is just an annoyance, a hurdle to overcome.
- Member since 2024 · 153 posts · 67 votes11mo
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Eric N.:
Quote from @Russell Brazil:
Quote from @Eric N.:
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein
AI is a fool. Overestimate it and you will make fool of yourself.
On a side note, I didn't notice the annoying and overwhelming spread of AI-generated text on this forum. But then, I am always here to search for a specific topic and may accidentally stumble upon something featured as "Newest" by BP.
Speaking of which, I believe one of the biggest shortcomings of this forum is that most of the content (either deliberately or due to the incompetence of the developer who created the platform for the forum) is hidden, unless you spend time searching for it. Almost any other forum I am aware of has an obvious map visible when you open the main page. There is usually a long list of sub-forums, with "General Discussion" and a couple of similar topics pinned to the top, and the rest neatly organized by subjects. You would then click on one of the subject links and open the next page where all the topics would be chronologically ordered, with the top thread also being the one that had the last response.
It's not the same here. This forum has a weird design. When you hover your mouse over the "FORUMS" tab, you see an annoying "hidden/not now hidden" screen with links to five sub-forums, each then having two to eight sub-sub-forums listed under it. Good luck searching for and finding, say, the Real Estate Wholesaling Strategy Forum, unless you know it exists and use Google to search to find it. The same goes for other sub-forums. Imagine how many people find this forum, browse it, get frustrated because they can't find the content they are looking for, and leave without asking or posting meaningful question or engaging in a debate. I don't remember how this site was functioning in the past, but I suspect this "what you look for is hidden/buried deep where you can't find it" strategy is somewhat new to BP and its implementation may have coincided with the steep decline of this forum's overall popularity.
I can't imagine that the people running this site are complete fools. Therefore, I assume that whatever shortcomings we see are the intended goal, and this is how the website owners want it to be. It's not result of the incompetence of one developer or malicious intent of few other moderators. It seems to me that BP simply keeps the forum as an appendix to the site and business they run, and it's something they would rather bury 6 feet under and not let thrive, as if it were some sort of a nuisance.
There's definitely some grains of truth to what you're saying that I can say as an insider, and long time moderator, and content creator for BP.
Many years ago, BP simply was the Forums. They eventually added some blogging features. The heyday of the Forums it was the singular most important thing of the site, and organic SEO was a more important thing with Google at the time. So, the forums always came up high in Google searches.
Fast forward a few years, and social media, video and YouTube became more important to BP for its revenue growth,...and really became more important to the consumer. Users of the forums were sacked away to the Facebook groups. The groups were less usable for someone trying to learn about complex subjects...and were far harder to moderate, leading to a more toxic experience on FB for the moderators.
There isn't much money in the Forums. The money is in social media and YouTube, so thats where the resources of staff, content creators and users ends up these days.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. So, it's fair to assume that public Forum got neglected by BP and therefore no longer generates quality content from genuinely involved in real estate professionals, as it used to. My understand is that it is not AI content per se that took over. AI content simply filled the gap created by lack of real interest in the forum. If this is so, then BP might even be happy with AI generating all this content, otherwise the forum would appear as completely deserted.
There is also a lot less interest in real estate investing in 2025 than there was 5-10 years ago. The current conditions in the market just aren't what they were back then.
Current conditions are nothing like pre-COVID. And day-and-night from what they were in 2022. But there is no lack of newbies who post "positive" and "inspired" posts all over the place, if you frequent any active investor community online. It's a paradox, but it seems there are more people joining band wagon now than ever before. BP is certainly not reflective of the current trend.
- 11moJonathan GreeneBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Madison, NJ · Member since 2016 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
You could answer why in the world somebody would be down to invest money their money in a syndication where the sponsor was alleged to have gotten paid $4.4M upfront.
- 11moJay HinrichsBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
You could answer why in the world somebody would be down to invest money their money in a syndication where the sponsor was alleged to have gotten paid $4.4M upfront.
syndicators have to eat to.. - 11moJonathan GreeneBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Madison, NJ · Member since 2016 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
You could answer why in the world somebody would be down to invest money their money in a syndication where the sponsor was alleged to have gotten paid $4.4M upfront.
My response would only be a meme, because who didn't see this coming?
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
You could answer why in the world somebody would be down to invest money their money in a syndication where the sponsor was alleged to have gotten paid $4.4M upfront.
My response would only be a meme, because who didn't see this coming?
Based on the amount of money raised, sounds like a whole lotta people didn't lol.
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
You could answer why in the world somebody would be down to invest money their money in a syndication where the sponsor was alleged to have gotten paid $4.4M upfront.
syndicators have to eat to..Eat too much & you'll get heart disease.
- 11moJonathan GreeneBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Madison, NJ · Member since 2016 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
You could answer why in the world somebody would be down to invest money their money in a syndication where the sponsor was alleged to have gotten paid $4.4M upfront.
My response would only be a meme, because who didn't see this coming?
Based on the amount of money raised, sounds like a whole lotta people didn't lol.
This is the group of LPs who do no due diligence, don't read anything, sign at will, and then complain that they didn't know what was happening. They chose not to know.
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
You could answer why in the world somebody would be down to invest money their money in a syndication where the sponsor was alleged to have gotten paid $4.4M upfront.
My response would only be a meme, because who didn't see this coming?
Based on the amount of money raised, sounds like a whole lotta people didn't lol.
This is the group of LPs who do no due diligence, don't read anything, sign at will, and then complain that they didn't know what was happening. They chose not to know.
Agreed, but it doesn't mean public scrutiny of the whole thing isn't still appropriate.
- 11moJonathan GreeneBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Madison, NJ · Member since 2016 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
You could answer why in the world somebody would be down to invest money their money in a syndication where the sponsor was alleged to have gotten paid $4.4M upfront.
My response would only be a meme, because who didn't see this coming?
Based on the amount of money raised, sounds like a whole lotta people didn't lol.
This is the group of LPs who do no due diligence, don't read anything, sign at will, and then complain that they didn't know what was happening. They chose not to know.
Agreed, but it doesn't mean public scrutiny of the whole thing isn't still appropriate.
I think everything should be publicly scrutinized. Transparency is what people should seek, not an AI proforma.
- Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes11mo
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
You could answer why in the world somebody would be down to invest money their money in a syndication where the sponsor was alleged to have gotten paid $4.4M upfront.
My response would only be a meme, because who didn't see this coming?
Based on the amount of money raised, sounds like a whole lotta people didn't lol.
This is the group of LPs who do no due diligence, don't read anything, sign at will, and then complain that they didn't know what was happening. They chose not to know.
Agreed, but it doesn't mean public scrutiny of the whole thing isn't still appropriate.
I think everything should be publicly scrutinized. Transparency is what people should seek, not an AI proforma.
After you've been in the real estate game for awhile, the most obvious thing in the world is that it's a dirty business filled with nothing but sharks. And the ones that are out there presenting themselves as the "nice guy" and "your friend" and "i'm not in it for the money, i'm in it to help people" are always the most cutthroat sharks of them all.
- 11moJonathan GreeneBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Madison, NJ · Member since 2016 · 6k+ posts · 7k+ votes
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
You could answer why in the world somebody would be down to invest money their money in a syndication where the sponsor was alleged to have gotten paid $4.4M upfront.
My response would only be a meme, because who didn't see this coming?
Based on the amount of money raised, sounds like a whole lotta people didn't lol.
This is the group of LPs who do no due diligence, don't read anything, sign at will, and then complain that they didn't know what was happening. They chose not to know.
Agreed, but it doesn't mean public scrutiny of the whole thing isn't still appropriate.
I think everything should be publicly scrutinized. Transparency is what people should seek, not an AI proforma.
After you've been in the real estate game for awhile, the most obvious thing in the world is that it's a dirty business filled with nothing but sharks. And the ones that are out there presenting themselves as the "nice guy" and "your friend" and "i'm not in it for the money, i'm in it to help people" are always the most cutthroat sharks of them all.
It's a world of grifters and prey. The grift is pretty obvious. Most people fall for it because they want to be part of some club. Unfortunately, that club is burning money of your own to support a fake guru.
- Member since 2024 · 153 posts · 67 votes11moIt's not just real estate. All businesses are like that.
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Jonathan Greene:
I just tried to respond to a few things in the forum by going to the unanswered forum, and it was basically all dried dirt. There's nothing to do here anymore.
You could answer why in the world somebody would be down to invest money their money in a syndication where the sponsor was alleged to have gotten paid $4.4M upfront.
My response would only be a meme, because who didn't see this coming?
Based on the amount of money raised, sounds like a whole lotta people didn't lol.
This is the group of LPs who do no due diligence, don't read anything, sign at will, and then complain that they didn't know what was happening. They chose not to know.
Agreed, but it doesn't mean public scrutiny of the whole thing isn't still appropriate.
I think everything should be publicly scrutinized. Transparency is what people should seek, not an AI proforma.
After you've been in the real estate game for awhile, the most obvious thing in the world is that it's a dirty business filled with nothing but sharks. And the ones that are out there presenting themselves as the "nice guy" and "your friend" and "i'm not in it for the money, i'm in it to help people" are always the most cutthroat sharks of them all.
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