Parlin, NJ · Member since 2017 · 23 posts · 5 votes
Hi BP community,
Just curious if anyone has attended Than Merrill's Real Estate class and what they thought of it. It is advertised as a free 2hr class about flipping houses in the New Jersey area. Thanks for any input.
Frank Ruopoli
For any educations, you will pick up a lot of valuable information if you are a complete beginner. I am all for education value up to $1,500. Preferably under $1,000. I much more prefer to include two-four days live seminar with it. You will learn a lot. It will save you more than a year of experience if you were trying to pick it up on your own utilizing free info and/or books. Nuggets of the courses are normally not even available on any free sites. That edge alone should be worth at least the tuition. However, never sign up for mentoring or coaching that values more than $3,000.
Just like cell phone companies, they will be super nice to a potential and/or new clients. Once you become a client their job ends there. I had many many unfortunate experiences with famous gurus. Avoid coaching or mentoring at all cost if possible. If someone made their course intentionally omitting some valuable information and/or do not even provide a support via forum or email on their products only to upsell mentoring is a crook. That is my opinion. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend.
For any educations, you will pick up a lot of valuable information if you are a complete beginner. I am all for education value up to $1,500. Preferably under $1,000. I much more prefer to include two-four days live seminar with it. You will learn a lot. It will save you more than a year of experience if you were trying to pick it up on your own utilizing free info and/or books. Nuggets of the courses are normally not even available on any free sites. That edge alone should be worth at least the tuition. However, never sign up for mentoring or coaching that values more than $3,000.
Just like cell phone companies, they will be super nice to a potential and/or new clients. Once you become a client their job ends there. I had many many unfortunate experiences with famous gurus. Avoid coaching or mentoring at all cost if possible. If someone made their course intentionally omitting some valuable information and/or do not even provide a support via forum or email on their products only to upsell mentoring is a crook. That is my opinion. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend.
I did the intro one and the 3 day one. I honestly learned a lot at the 3 day one. It was a good premier on all the different avenues of investing. I paid $99 for it and would definitely say it was worth the money. I didn't go any further than the 3 day. They will try to up-sell you on the 3rd day, but none of it i.m.o. is worth the $$$$ they ask.
It's funny, sometimes I forget the power of searching a forum for info and automatically post a question. I did search the topic and found plenty of info. Thank you
I went 9 months ago i paid 197 for the 3 day, on day 3 I suggest leaving your Checkbook and debit or credit cards home. the upsell was 30k, 35k & 50k .
Fortune Builders is for established investors. Newbies will be rather overwhelmed.
The 3-day is pretty intense when they're not pushing their Mastery program. 9 hours a day, and they break for lunch after all the lunch places have closed for the day.
Not entirely useless, but not as helpful as one might want.
Frank Ruopoli Look on BP, spend 20 minutes on Google, read articles from (theoretically) neutral outfits like this:
http//www.cleveland.com/consumeraffairs/index.ssf/2012/08/a_flurry_of_alerts_about_trave.html
Personally, I think it's odd hearing about these programs on radio ads during radio shows put on my "professional gamblers" that tell you that they "have a system". It sounds oddly similar :)
Now that's my uneducated, unfair, and completely biased opinion.
It just strikes me as a scam to purposefully advertise "investment" seminars to people with bad credit and none of their own money. I can't help but think "why would that be your TARGET market?" Why would you want people with no money that have made suspect financial decisions in the past (bad credit) to show up?
It's certainly not because you think they have a ton of money to pay for your Gold/Silver/Bronze programs...
So why are you seeking that individual 🤔
Andrew Johnson, I never thought of it like that but I think you are right. As for me, I'm just trying to find as many sources of "reliable" information as I can. I was skeptical about the "pros" and that's why I posted the question.
Thanks for input.
I never been to his training nor any other guru for that matter, I travel for a living and often stay in hotels and almost every night I keep seeing his informational. My advice is don't even bother with them, you will learn more by downloading biggerpockets podcasts. These gurus are in business to sell their so called special training and nothing else, and after you buy it they will push for more.
The key point to remember is that regardless which guru it is, they fly in, sell stuff and fly out - they do NOT do REI in your area. Whatever they tell you is likely to NOT be locally focused.
I often watch his show “Flip This House” and find myself wondering how they became so successful with this. However, when I saw his late night infomercial, I found it to be a scam because it wouldn’t make sense for him to hold classes encouraging people to be in the same field as him but could also become his competition.
I have been an investor for more than a decade now. I've spent the last four of those years flipping houses and can tell you that the tools and networking available through the Mastery program would have made me a millionaire by now. I have four houses going right now and while I have a LOT of experience in real estate I lacked the systems and structure they offer. The ability to network with other investors some of which are offering capital the others whom have properties to sell will take my business to the next level.
I have been to many workshops in the past, most of which were mainly hype. Fortune Builders has substance and I met interesting thinkers in the 3 day workshop as well which only cost $197. However, their upsell was absurd and diametrically opposed to some of what they taught. Their mastery program of $50-70K seemed to reveal extreme greed and hypocrisy given the earlier discussions on the importance of balance in business. That was disappointing. However, they were receptive to the criticism and their education compared to most others (who generally speak in code and fluff to feed their ego instead of feeding education,) was absent there, thankfully. The most crucial part of everything they taught was the importance streamlining processes and always having a system in place. This resonated with me because, I have always stressed preparation and doing things once to avoid wasteful repetition. This aspect of working smarter, I feel is the key component to what distinguishes their training from others.