All Forum Posts by: Michael Rogers

Doctora,

I don't have any direct experience with the Trump mentoring program or Gary Eldred. However, I am not a big fan of any program that charges $8,500 to help you buy a property. I would recommend you reading books, reading articles on biggerpockets, and do other research on your own for a little while before you pull the trigger on real estate investing. If after several months of research you decide real estate investing isn't for you (which is perfectly all right), you might want to take the advice of Warren Buffett and consistently invest in a low-cost index fund that tracks American business. Generally an index fund that tracks the S&P 500 with a low fee of .10% is a good investment. The low frictional costs are important over a long period of time.

A couple of years ago, I saw a billboard w/ Donald Trump promoting the Learning Annex in Atlanta, Georgia. This was at the height of the Apprentice and I thought it would be a good way to see "The Donald" and Robert Kiyosaki in person.

After my dad and I purchased our tickets separately for a couple hundred dollars, we were each sent a package with a couple extra tickets enclosed. I thought this was a little strange since the tickets were about $100 each, that they would accidentally enclose extra. What was really a coincidence was that my dad got extra tickets when his package arrived the next day. A day or two later we each got a pre-recorded phone call from the Learning Annex saying they had accidentally included the tickets, but since it was an honest mistake go ahead an bring a couple friends for free. (This is when I started to get a feeling this wasn't going to a learning seminar, but a "hold onto your wallet" marketing free for all.)

Anyway, dad and I still wanted to see Trump so we started looking through the itinerary to determine what time on the weekend he would be speaking. We live 2 hours from Atlanta and were going to drive down that day and see him speak and not go to both days of the seminar. My dad called the Learning Annex to get the time and day of his speech. This is when the "Bologna" got real good. They informed us due to security reasons, they could not disclose when the main speakers would be speaking over the weekend. Not even, which day. WTF! These guys have some serious brass to use that line. Can you imagine if you bought Super Bowl tickets and they told you the game would be played somewhere during a 48 hour time period over a weekend in January. There would be a public outcry.

My opinion as to why the did this was to make people show up and sit through all the extra high pressure sales gurus. I would guess the Learning Annex gets some sort of commission off sales and they knew no one would want to listen a "no name" sale his product.

After this incident, we decided this was probably not a learning event, but a marketing event and therefore did not go the actual event. I am interested if anyone has been to these events and had a similar experience.

I thought you might make you laugh. I actually picked that line up off of a famous investor who used it to describe investing in the airline industry. I just modified it to fit the real estate field. :D

If you are interested in a Buy and Hold approach, "The Millionaire Real Estate Investor" by Gary Keller is a good book. It has a cheezy title, but it focuses on a long-term strategy of picking a local market, becoming a master of it, a purchasing properties that are underpriced and doing it for many years.

I have to agree with MikeOH on the point about spending $25k on real estate education every year. I don't think that is necessary to be successful. After a couple years of investing I don't think there are that many $25k programs that will teach you much more about this business. Are you spending that money in grad school to get an MBA w/ a concentration in Real Estate?

I think the best education is to read books, stay current with the news, and focus on an specific market and become a master of it.

The easiest way to become a millionaire in real estate is to start out with a billion dollars and then hire a guru to help you get rich. In a year or two, you'll probably be a millionaire. :lol:

I don't know if you have a Mac computer, but using iWeb is super easy. I have an iMac computer and I used it to create my website. I purchased my domain through Network Solutions and they point the domain to my .mac account.

The annual fee for .mac account is $60. (This is used for hosting the site.) The annual domain registration fee is between $10 to $20 a year. This varies by company. You may check out godaddy.com. I think they are cheaper.

The most expensive part is the Mac computer. However, I really like my Mac for creative stuff like websites, flyers, etc. It is very easy to update when I have a property come available for rent. You can see an example of how I put together my properties page below.

http://www.chandler-property.com/Chandler-Property/Properties/Properties.html

Michael

Welcome! Glad to have you on the forum. Don't be shy about posting.

I agree that some tenants are chronic complainers and will make your life difficult no matter what you do. You may be better off if this upstairs tenant moves out and you are able to get a new tenant at a higher rate.

As far as telling someone you have had a complaint about the smell coming from their apartment, you are not breaking any laws asking them to curb the smell. I totally agree that you need to exercise political tact when talking to them and not even touch on the ethnicity of the food being prepared. I'd guage how they react to your request. If they are resistant and difficult, then consider a notice. However, you might get lucky and they clean up their act.

I just want to clarify. Are they cooking some sort of foreign food or is the tenant suggesting they are cooking meth? Just checking. If it's meth, then it's an expensive problem. If it's some sort of smelly food, you might politely mention to the tenant that it smells and ask them to see if they know any way to tone the smell down. Open windows, don't cook that meal anymore, etc..

Good luck

Avoid the gurus. Their expertise is in marketing and encouraging people, not in making people money. There are several good books out there that you can read. They are considerably cheaper and if several months down the road you decide real estate investing isn't for you, then at least you won't have a $5,000 credit card bill.