First off, the faces on the covers of the pamphlets have nothing to do with the seminars. They are ALL run out of Utah (surprise!) by a company called Zurixx and they don't have a very good reputation. Christine and Tarek have as much to do with the education as George Foreman was involved in inventing the grill with his name on it.
Just the first few articles that pop up when you google their names. Guru garbage. Classic bait and switch.
http://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2016/10...
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/classes-733381-...
Save your money.
You can pay them large amounts of money to learn, or you can learn the same things and more for free in these forums and on this website.
First off, the faces on the covers of the pamphlets have nothing to do with the seminars. They are ALL run out of Utah (surprise!) by a company called Zurixx and they don't have a very good reputation. Christine and Tarek have as much to do with the education as George Foreman was involved in inventing the grill with his name on it.
Please stop writing these useless comments. Of course this site has it all. Of course Googling it will find all the answers. According to you, Harvard University education has no value along with all the schools in the world.
You are not the first one to write the exact same comment. You are matter of fact about somewhere in the millionth. Be original. Understand what people are looking for. Care for others.
Having said that, these people want to hear anyone who had experience of taking same courses or similar courses.
@Michael Jone I hear what your saying many on BP will say the same thing don't spend money on training you can get it all here at BP although @Russell Brazil comments are in my mind made in a manner that in genuine .. so I think you were a little harsh on him
The reality as @Aaron Mazzrillo stated is these companies are all fronted by UTAH based seminar companies Every single one of them.. And further more their presentations and how they do buisness is steeped in MLM... and guess who backs MLM the floors in Utah.. its simply a fact.
I personally probably have more first hand knowledge than most on BP with these guys.. as I have funded many of their students deals over the last 20 years..
I think all of these venues from BP to gurus over glamorize how easy it is to make money in this industry and you will always have rock stars in any industry.. but the fact is 90% will fail .
the ones that dont have day jobs make good money and buy rentals for long term
Thank you, Nate - I may reach out to you.
Appreciate the replies. I paid the $2k for the 3-day workshop that gave a high-energy overview of RE Strategies, taxes, and credit, plus access to their HMLs. I fully understand that they are in it to make money themselves, but it is very intriguing to have an experienced mentor to walk you through your first couple of deals, therefore making your money back... I have decided against the program for now, just hoping it was not a poor, skeptical decision on my part.
I am all for paid education but with a bit of filter. First, do not pay over $2,000. Next, stay away from one to one mentoring-STAY FAR AWAY. Do not continue to purchase same/similar wholesaling courses. I recommend buying one course on "Wholesaling" and another specialized courses such as "vacant home", "probate", "note", "tax lien", "rehab", "apartment", "funding/private lender", and so on.
Do not purchase too many courses at the beginning as information constantly change. You should always start with wholesaling and buy as you need them. Information, just like technology, normally gets cheaper as time passes.
You can get the same info from free sites but you may have to read same stuff thousand times before you get to valuable information that not too many of your competitors have. Besides many information is not in organized format. To me, time is an important factor. In addition, most of gurus will give you one or two awe moments that can make you thousands of $$$ in your career. None of them are full of surprises from the beginning to end. Most manuals are 100-300 pages. Less than ten pages are those wow pages. To some, it is waste of money. For people like me, it is valuable information worth my money (normally less than $1000).
@Michael Jone I hear what your saying many on BP will say the same thing don't spend money on training you can get it all here at BP although @Russell Brazil comments are in my mind made in a manner that in genuine .. so I think you were a little harsh on him
The reality as @Aaron Mazzrillo stated is these companies are all fronted by UTAH based seminar companies Every single one of them.. And further more their presentations and how they do buisness is steeped in MLM... and guess who backs MLM the floors in Utah.. its simply a fact.
I personally probably have more first hand knowledge than most on BP with these guys.. as I have funded many of their students deals over the last 20 years..
I think all of these venues from BP to gurus over glamorize how easy it is to make money in this industry and you will always have rock stars in any industry.. but the fact is 90% will fail .
the ones that dont have day jobs make good money and buy rentals for long term
Yes, I see that almost all educators are either from Florida or Utah. If my wordings are harsh, I apologize. I do not like people trying to make this business sound easy. Chances of those of you search Google to learn 100% of REI business is very slim to none.
If you want to get free education, your best bet is attend local REI meeting to get acquainted with an expert. It may cost you to join the club. That is the best bet. even so, no one will provide an education in A-Z in proper order. There are educations available on this site that are decent. However, I really feel there are some gap in quality compare to many of the paid educations I learned.
I guess, your willingness to carry out what you learned is more important than education. No matter what you learned, you have to execute. There is always more things to learn form your own experience.
Thank you, Nate - I may reach out to you.
Appreciate the replies. I paid the $2k for the 3-day workshop that gave a high-energy overview of RE Strategies, taxes, and credit, plus access to their HMLs. I fully understand that they are in it to make money themselves, but it is very intriguing to have an experienced mentor to walk you through your first couple of deals, therefore making your money back... I have decided against the program for now, just hoping it was not a poor, skeptical decision on my part.
You can find HMLs everywhere. The ones they refer you to are not special and will not look at your deal any differently than any other HML. Money always chases deals. I don't care how much you pay them. If your deal is skinny, you're not getting any money to fund it unless you come up with some serious coin of your own to play. Also, you are extremely unlikely to find anyone who will "walk you through your first couple of deals" especially at a seminar you paid to attend. They ALL say they will, but they won't. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not never. In the seminar business, this is called "tail." They want the money upfront and do all they can to avoid the tail. You'll get crappy customer service, frustratingly vague answers, useless "make lots of MLS offers!" strategy suggestions, but you will NEVER get someone to hold your hand and walk you through a deal. That is a lie. If by some freak circumstance you do, it will be some idiot being paid by the hour to work the phones and the only real estate transaction that person most likely ever has been involved in was moving out of mommy's basement and into some crappy studio apartment.
You either grow a pair, jump in head first and get it done or you accept the fact that you're probably not cut out for this business. (That's called being an entrepreneur by the way.) When I first got started, I bet the entire farm and then some diving head first into many deals and I never even bothered to look and see if there was water in the pool first. So many people want to be in this business, but they sit on the sidelines frozen in terror. They always think there is just one more secret to learn. One special contract with that bullet proof secret escape clause they need a copy of. Some special marketing piece or list they have to find. It's all nonsense. This business is so pathetically easy. That's the secret. I've let the cat out of the bag. You want a $10,000 seminar? Find a house, look up what Zillow or Redin say the value is, then offer 55% of that number. Keep doing it until someone says, "Yes." You can literally just walk up and down streets knocking on doors, asking if they want to sell their house, then pull out your phone and tell them what you'll give them. If they agree, write it all down on any piece of scrap paper and drop off that wrinkled piece of coffee stained paper at your nearest escrow office. They'll type it all up nice and neat for you. You do that enough times, you will buy a house.
Once you get going you'll kick yourself every day wondering what the hell you even went to high school for. That was 4 years wasted I could have been wholesaling houses, chasing dirty cheerleaders and skateboarding every day.
@Allie Cerone I am one of those that signed up with those workshops and still involved in it. Not exactly with Success Path System you mentioned, but from a different company. The instructors/speakers or educators will tell you that "it's not for everybody". That said, it's just how bad you want to learn the process and do actions on what you've learned. It's education, just like any, it all depends on how you use it. They do make money, just like any business but in the end, it's really up to you. The way I see it, it's money spent on education where you can get it back in a couple or few deals. Whereas with college, finishing up at a known university, having a student loan so high, either you land a great job with high pay or just a job that can accommodate your college loan plus other expenses, that will take years to pay. This is just a comparison and I'm not against a college degree.
I suggest that you don't sign up with expensive workshops at this point, but make it to attend one of those REI Meetup meetings and see & hear it first hand, if this business is something you really want to pursue. I think, a couple of those meetings will help you decide which way you want to go. Plus, you might meet or network with some investors that might be willing to take you under their wing and be mentored. If that happens, then you don't need to sign up with the workshop.
I hope this helps out and good luck!
Every new investor wants a treasure map and short path to a profitable, operating mine.
My first seminar was with Ken Roberts in 1978 on history buy Foreclosure super bargains. It's was $500 and well worth it, even if it fired a lifelong obsession with distressed property acquisitions.
I found another gem of an educator in John Beck, before he himself became obsessed with tax deeds, liens and went rogue, then went missing!
Many, if not most, of the promoters are not really real estate people and are prey to new investors who don't know the signs. I've personally known quite a few of the dream merchants and sadly, even taught for several of them. Once I discovered that they were not really about real estate but the info products income, I distanced myself.
I also watched the drama of two people who ran an Orange County REIA club. They found desperate members with cash who could not find local deals for their life and convinced them to fund their "deals" in Utah.
Never past my sniff test. Some really nice people believed in them and even some experienced investors lent their name. I never spoke nor let my name be associated with what was a doomed ghost ship.
Part of the pitch is that the prospective attendee will "miss out" or be shunned from the group if they fail to commit. They often use shame and guilt to find a leverage point, even disappointment about sex in the bedroom because the prospective investor hasn't manned up to open their wallet for the training. You may think I'm kidding. The pitchmen will use whatever they can!
That said, I spend more than most on education every year because I see and like the results. After near 40 years in the game I have a better sense of the areas I wish to focus on and can afford to vet the educators. It's rarely that they are new. And social media us hardly a place to get an objective report from a biased, anti-spend-money-for-education community.
Start by buying and studying the books from the classic real estate authors. $250 will get many of them in your library. Some of them are available in audio. Then, after getting through those, help someone else who works in the real estate field, for free.
Trash. I went to one of the free seminars and they get people all pumped up then start swiping cards at the end. It's total bait/switch
As an investor who lives in Utah, this is making me laugh and I thought I would share my story about how I first found out about bigger pockets.
After the mortgage meltdown, my husband and I lost all of our properties and had to start over from scratch. He is a Realtor, so what job is available for out of work Realtors in a depressed Utah market? Working for the companies that run the call centers for Guru training.
For a year and a half, he provided one on one weekly calls to people who had paid anywhere from $5000 to $50,000 and gave them the same training regardless of what they paid. There were at least 5 guru's that they would teach for and he had to keep a note up to remind him which name to mention as he talked about "their" techniques. Two had actual syllabuses, the others didn't so they just used what the others gave them. Six months into working there, we started a new flip which made him the only person in the department who was actually working as an investor. Most of his coworkers had only bought their own personal residences and a few had never purchased a property at all.
One day he was asking around for good info about something (a good tutorial on how to calculate a CAP rate, I think) and one of his coworkers pointed him to a link in Bigger Pockets. His supervisor caught him talking to a client about Bigger Pockets and told him that he could look up info there to share with clients, but not to let them know where he got it.
The company went out of business and my husband is back to being a full time Realtor, but don't worry, more companies like it have moved in to fill the void.
@Allie Cerone I was recently interviewed in In Touch Weekly about this topic.