"The Real Deals"

[Doug Smith]

I just saw a @Chris Seveney post from 4 days ago about how real estate investing has changed and we now live in an "influencer-based" economy where it's hard to know who to trust. I was literally lamenting that fact as I was doing my Sunday-morning doom scrolling (don't worry, Chris. I voted for the post). There was an event advertised in my town recently with a well-known charlatan guru and several hundred people evidently attended. What the guy preaches is scary and he has a checkered past if anyone would take the time to research, but he tells people what they want to hear and they pay him for his "advice". I scroll through BP and I see seemingly well-meaning, well-crafted posts, but then you see it's from a poster with 1 Post and 0 Votes. Just the other day I had a female contractor reach out to me on here and she had really formed a great profile with connections, etc wanting to connect and chat about how we could do business together. The next thing I know I get a "Whatcha Doin'?" text with a "pic". I learned my lesson. Whenever I accept a connection request or agree to work with someone now, I go to Linked In to look up their background, work experience, and check out how long they've had their profile open. Does what I see make sense? Any guru that wasn't doing this prior to 2007 and had to manage a portfolio through that time is someone I probably shouldn't be listening to. It stinks because we were all new on here at one point and we all had to make a "first post", but the BS-artists have taken over every platform. I know people like myself and others on this and other platforms just want to help, advise, and possibly work with people we meet on social media platforms. Unfortunately, @Chris Seveney is right, things have changed...and not necessarily for the better. Now, enough of my belly-aching...let's go do some real estate stuff. 

[Mike Dymski]

Was the "pic" good...