Lifestyles Unlimited by Del Walmsley
Rental Property Investor · Baytown, TX · Member since 2008 · 94 posts · 21 votes
Lifestyles Unlimited by Del Walmsley
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Don KonipolBusiness Member
Investor · The Woodlands TX / Avon, CT · Member since 2009 · 6k+ posts · 10k+ votesAlthough I was never a member of Lifestyles, a few years ago I taught some classes for them as a guest lecturer and attended some others. I also got to know some of the members as well as Del and others working for him. I do not think Lifestyles is in the same category as many of the other guru and mentoring programs, in that Lifestyles provides a hands on approach with very specific guidance and an emphasis on the actual purchase of residential properties. Their emphasis seems to be on realistic approaches to real estate investing, unlike many of the easy money (and useless) methods taught by the "gurus".
On the down side I have found that Lifestyles "over promises". Hence they are able to lead an inexperienced real estate investor to believe that obtaining "the lifestyle" i.e. passive cash flow is much easier than it really is. A number of the members I am personally aquainted with have purchased a large number of multi family units, however, for the most part these have been management intensive apartment projects that do not lend themselves well to absentee ownership. I know quite a few ex members who said that they were able to obtain positive cash flow from their investments, but that the passive part was a myth, that they were spending lots of time putting out fires at their properties. The truth of the matter is that Lifestyles bread and butter are C and D apartments, in these absentee management usually means profits are absent also. Further, Lifestyles tag line is that they can teach anyone enough so that anyone can be successful as an investor in real estate. My experience in the business (30 + years), has shown me that this is absolutely incorrect. Just like not everyone can be a successful surgeon, airline pilot, or major league baseball player, not everyone can be a successful investor. Better to find out if you have the capacity for success in real estate before you invest your money, find out if any of the ingedients you might be missing are obtainable and then figure out if they can cost effectively be obtained.
Jody, Lifestyles may very well work for you in your ambition for real estate investment success. Lifestyles is certainly a much better choice than most of the other so called guru or mentorship programs. However, I think you are currently suffering from myopic vision, seeing only the positive and not the negative. I'm afraid the tone of your posts are similiar to those of new multi level (network) marketing recruits, i.e. Amway, or whatever their name is this month. It sounds like an almost religious feverence, Del is a deity whose only purpose is to help people, the mentors at lifestyle do it to give back, not the money, etc. The truth is Lifestyles is a business like any other business, despite what they may claim or it's membership wants to believe, they perform their service for the same reason we all work , THE MONEY.
155 Replies
- Houston, TX · Member since 2011 · 118 posts · 70 votes14y
Hey folks, I joined Lifestyles Unlimited at the lowest level a little over a year ago...called the "Financial Peace level" I got in for 240 which is also the annual renewal. The next level up is the Challenge level which is 5000.00 which is the hand-holding program for folks that really need to be walked through the process of single family investing. No rebate is given when closing on properties at this level. The highest level is the preferred investors group (PIG) which focuses on both single family and mainly multi-family (apartments). At this level you can be either a passive investor or a lead investor if you choose. Another thing to note is that at the upper two levels the Lifestyles brokerage will email you fresh deals that you can contract with a click of the mouse. Perfect if you have a day job. You sign contracts digitally. I chose to just remain at the lowest level. I can go to all the classes and the the big two day seminar every month of the year if I choose. I treat the group as forum. I mean you physically can rub elbows with other investors and meet vendors that can help put your team together. The lowest level also comes with vendor discounts. Again, its more about the education and the contacts for me. I met all the hard money lenders I use at LS. I know the 10,000 is high, especially your not 100% sure that you want to dedicate yourself to this type of investing. But I bared witness to members at the case study meetings receive big checks back from the deals they've closed. I also paid an arm and leg (5000) to learn stock options investing which I made back ten-fold in 5 months after I quit paper-trading and started putting up real money. Everything is an eduction and 10000 (only if you're not a good self-learner) is way cheaper than a college loan...wouldn't you agree? To tell you the truth, the real reason I hang out up there at the office is because of the big boobs and the 80's music played over the sound system :lol:
- Austin, TX · Member since 2012 · 9 posts · 0 votes13y
I am a current and new member of LU. I thought I would share my experience and see if anyone has any comments or answers to the questions I will also pose.
I joined after attending a 1 free seminar. The free seminar was a sales pitch, but it sounded reasonable for what I would get for my $500.
There is good content and best practices and white papers and documents, case studies, and networking events. And, there is the 2 day training workshop.
The 2 day workshop was a combination of
1. Motivation - get rich, freedom from the job, etc.
2. Education on LU own system of investing for SFH and MF.
3. Basic real estate investment education.
4. Up sell on the $10,000 membership level.I certainly feel I have got my initial money back in education and access to other members, contractors, content, and training.
Now, here is where I get suspicious. Because I want to go into the multi family investing, they tell me that they really can't talk to me, give advice, connect me into an investing group deal, unless I pay the 10k. They really did a bad job of explaining the value of the 10k investment. I mean, that is a lot of money, I would expect some real hard quantifiable services. Now, they do say that they hand hold you through this process, and I see that and it has value. But, again 10k? Plus, you use their agents that will make great money on this deal? Why not just add a 1 percent kicker to the deal that you pay when you do a deal? That seems fair and reasonable.
The fact that they pulled back on being able to offer advice on MF unless I pay this 10k fee seems disingenuous the original sales pitch of getting mentoring. Apparently not all mentoring.
Anyways, I know that an inexperienced investor could screw up big time on a MF project, so, I am wondering if there is an alternative to the 10k, or if other people with "Successful" MF experience think 10k is reasonable?
They also state that I should take my money out of 401k, even with the fees and taxes, and immediately invest it in real estate. I will need to look at the total costs on that one, but that was also recommendation.
The other members I have met so far have been great people with some good backgrounds and experiences.
Well, there you have my experience with LU so far. - San Antonio, TX · Member since 2012 · 3 posts · 15 votes13y
I very rarely take the time to post negative reviews about products/services. But in this case, I feel obliged to do so in order to warn others before they put down $10,000 of their hard-earned money.
I have been a "Preferred Investor Group"(PIG) member in San Antonio for a little bit over a year or so and have purchased 2 houses thru Lifestyles.
I choose to post with a psedo identity as it is not pragmatic to criticize a organization after paying a hefty sum in advance (which effectively precludes you from using services from other organizations).
I disagree with some of you who may claim that some of the below points are trivial. When you are being charged $10,000 a year, the service/product provided has to be top notch. I have paid less than $10k a year to other
organizations (not RE orgs) and have received far superior services/customer service.- Responses via email or phone from the realtors at LS is not of top notch quality. I have had to email/phone/leave voicemails repeatedly to get traction on deals that i have been interested in.
There have been numerous occasions when even a courtesy response was not provided to let me know that another member was already working on a house or the house was already under contract(and no, the Quest tool still indicated that the house was available for members).
It seems like the organization does not feel the need to send even a courtesy response if a property is no longer available for LS members .
Just ignoring a query is an unacceptable business practice in my book. The exception to this experience has been Dennis M. He has been prompt and courteous and
goes the extra mile.- Properties on the MLS are "tagged" by the realtors within LS. And a property can be tagged by only one realtor. And once a property has been tagged, you HAVE to work with the realtor who tagged it and not with any other realtor
within LS. This shifts incentive for the realtors within LS from providing good service and bagging repeat business to just be aggressive in tagging properties.
This is in stark contrast to the vendors who are not allowed to tag properties and thus always have an incentive to provide good service and gain repeat business.Remember you have already paid $10k, so you are going to work with the realtors within LS rather than external realtors.- LS uses a catch phrase "Real Estate is Easy, People are difficult" implying that RE is easy, you just need to be able to deal with various temperaments of various people involved in the sealing of a deal. Yet [b]the San Antonio office has only 1 Single Family Mentor, Jim V.[b] If for any reason, you and him are not on the same wavelenth, you can be rest assured, you will have to really really go the extra mile to ensure all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed during the various phases of a deal. He does not have any incentive to proactively ensure your deal is successful. $10k/year definitely should earn you multiple mentors(with a reasonable level of pro-activeness to return phone calls/emails and ensure that you are not forgetting to dot the i's and cross the t's that you are unaware of) to work with.
He has said that he has been extremely busy. Well, if you are too busy to respond to queries of people actively working on a deal, you need to stop advertising your services and taking people's hard earned till you hire more resources. - Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2009 · 40 posts · 9 votes13y
Timothy,
I am sorry you have been less than satisfies with Lifestyles. Have you taken your concerns to anyone in that office or to [email protected] Customer Service? They are there to help. It makes it hard for a company to address your specific concerns if a real name is not used. Can you please message me your information so we can understand your concerns and see where we can improve.
Thank you,
Natalie Pilkinton - Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2009 · 27 posts · 3 votes13y
i hear ya Timothy....PIG memberships cost plenty of $ for the return.
recently i listened to an LU radio broadcast about the basic retiring with a few house for cash flow (i'm paraphrasing). i thought, "yeah, that's easy enough. i can't even buy ONE house through LU." spent all of 2012 writing contracts - even thru LU - but to no avail.i will say the market is full of competition. still there's plenty of people buying. and i've offered cash and plenty of money over asking price. still, no house.
then i'm told by LU that i'm supposed to send an email to the mentors on monday telling them "i'm ready to buy" ......LOL.....hey, if i'm a PIG, that should tell you "i'm ready to buy". so now i have to convince you otherwise?
geez.
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