All Forum Posts by: Adam Hershman

 Hey Rod,

Yes most of the "guru" programs are widely and nakedly despised here on BP, and to some extent for good reason. I don't personally hate them or like them, I really don't have an opinion on them other than I would never pay for one. They are atrociously expensive, they are generally misleading about the success you will have, and they are very much about getting into debt.

Really the "misleading about the success" you will have comes down to the fact that they only tell you the home run stories, very similar to any other type of company advertising, or reading BP most days. (Most forum posts start with "How I Made $xx.xx..." "Or deal analysis" in fact one post a few days ago started with "The RE market too good to be true right now") So one can certainly not blame them for representing the most positive aspects or anecdotes.

The getting into debt part is also not something that is exclusive to gurus, hell, there are 100s, probably 1000s, of posts on BP forums promoting the same type of strategy that they use. Essentially leveraging out cash and getting into massive amounts of debt.

So if these 2 factors are fairly similar to some other businesses or investment strategies, #1 They highlight their best successes, #2 they use primarily debt to buy property, then there is really no reason to hate a guru program, unless you also hate the other persons or companies who behave the same way. I.e You would also have to be mad at every hotel that used their nicest property on a television commercial to represent their lackluster properties, or anyone on BP who advocates constantly leveraging property to buy your next property.

#3 Atrociously Expensive. is the one that draws the greatest ire, and I'm really not sure why since the entire BP boards existence is predicated on the notion of an industry that specializes in selling at a profit, or servicing for fees. Yes, some gurus will charge you in excess of $40,000.00 for training, but I god damn guarantee you that no one would ever cry bloody murder if you made $40,000 on a flip, or took a $40,000 commission for brokering a deal. Basically my point is, if you have a right to charge someone $40,000.00 more than what you paid for something or for providing a service for them, why would a guru be evil or scum for doing the same thing? Granted their commodity in this situation is "knowledge" that is not necessarily good, not any tangible property, but value is determined by the free market, and clearly the free market can support a $40,000.00 price point. I had to fire my CPA last year because he wasn't getting the job done correctly, does that make him evil because he messed up my taxes, for missing something and causing me a small penalty and a large headache? 

When it comes to REI, who is to say what strategy is good or bad? There are multiple forums daily discussing various REI strategies, tips and tricks, creative financing ideas etc, would BP be an "evil guru" if they charged for acceess? Is the only thing that keeps them a good resource the fact that the access is free? Of course not, people get on BP for what they believe is good knowledge, just like people pay for guru seminars for what they believe is good knowledge.

Full disclosure, this is just my opinion, and I am in no way affiliated with any guru, program, scheme, flim-flam, fast one, hosing, con, shakedown, sting, or hustle, I am simply a fan of seeing grown RE investors digress into 12 year old World of Warcraft forum trolls anytime someone mentions a "RE Guru". The illogical and hypocritical hate is HILARIOUS!

So this app is apparently only available for iOS?

Hey @Joshua Massari,

Sorry, I can't be very helpful in terms of my specific returns but the most common way of private lending in an IRA is via promissory note. This essentially lets you and the borrower set terms that are agreeable for both parties. The return is going to greatly depend on who your lending money to, for what purpose, and how much they are willing to pay for borrowing the money. For fix and flips, I would assume you would need to be around the same rate as a traditional HML, unless you are willing to adjust your risk outside of what they offer.

Full disclosure, I do participate in lending from my IRA, I am an employee of a self-directed IRA custodian.

Adam

 I did miss the reference to the "guest" in the subsequent post, and that does seem a little sketchy now that you point it out. 

But...

Why didn't the tenant open the door? There's a ton of answers, probably the most compelling to me is that you're under no legal obligation to open the door. If the police have a search warrant for your house, then they have the legal authority to enter the premises, often by force, but lets look at a couple common sense facts:

Police are not likely to break down your door, unless they believe you may 1) have weapons 2) be a flight risk wanted on fairly serious charges 3) be hiding and have made attempts to contact you at the residence at least once before.

Generally in the case of non-violent or non serious offenders, the police would generally knock and ask to talk to you. They won't bash down your door because you have a bench warrant for unpaid speeding tickets. Essentially what I'm saying is if the cops are at your door in swat gear with a battering ram, its probably pretty serious, and I don't know if you have ever seen a knock and enter executed, but the knock is more of an announcement that the door is about to be smashed in than a request to open the door. The whole point is to take the people inside by surprise, and not give them the chance to get rid of evidence, not to break down the door because the person inside refuses to open it.   

Again, if you have never had a bad experience with police then that is awesome, but I assure you many of us out there have had very bad experiences with law enforcement in many situations and circumstances. 

Besides any attorney will tell you that talking to any law enforcement before you are required to with an attorney present can only do harm, it NEVER helps.

Adam

 I can't say for sure if this particular company is "pretty much a scam" I dont know who they are or what their reputation is. But in general with these companies, your paying for the knowledge of the process. You aren't paying them to build your company credit, they can't how could they? You are paying them to tell you how to build your company credit, and what systems or tactics they use that are beneficial. It is just like a personal credit repair service, or even if you think about it your CPA or doctor. You go to a professional because they perform these services daily as a profession and are considered experts, I know it's an extreme example but if you could do your taxes as well as a CPA, you wouldn't hire a CPA you would do it yourself, but the vast majority of people either want the expertise or the convenience of a service.

Just my 2 cents. 

@Jeremy Pace

I am with you 100%, I know that not all police officers are bad people or even most, but when your profession is something as important as upholding the law and protecting and serving the public, you don't get many do-overs, especially if your mistake seems based on incompetence or negligence. I can't remember what the exact quote was or who said it, but in effect; "I would rather be known as an evil man, for evil oft masks the face of incompetence, and of the two, incompetence is the more dangerous."

Adam

Just have to throw my confirmation in there as well. @Brian Eastman and @Dmitriy Fomichenko are right on the money. You solo 401k would only be affected by your "self employment status" which has very little to do with how much work you actually perform for your company or for a W2 job, or both or either. 

@Account Closed

Well I live in Las Vegas, which if you're familiar with LVMPD is reason enough to assume the police were at fault, haha. 

I know what you're saying about jumping to conclusions, I think most of us assumed that the tenants were not engaged in illegal activity or otherwise caused the police to show up because of what the OP said:

"proceded to look for someone who 1) is not my tenant 2) was not there."

He didn't explicitly say the tenants had nothing to do with the matter, but the inference was that they were generally not at fault for bringing the authorities to the property.

Adam

 Come on now, this is just silly. Do you expect your insurance company to tell you they won't pay for your burned down house because you should have put the fire out? First of all the burden is not on the private citizen, the police can knock, break down your door, arrest you, and generally whatever else they want to do, this doesn't make it legal or in any way acceptable, and you should pursue damages in the case that they police are at fault. 

If the police had a warrant for someone at your address, they would have to have some sort of documentation or reasonable probable cause for a judge to issue a search warrant, so even if the warrant is effectually appropriate, the police may have acted inappropriately or even with negligence when preparing the request for a warrant (i.e if they got the wrong address or falsified evidence to obtain the warrant). In which case you would have not only claim to property damages but also several avenues of personal damage (i.e illegal seach, false charges, false arrest, possibly harassment and/or defamation of character.)

It's no more the tenants fault then if the property was vandalized or broken into, they have no control over the police, and they had done nothing to bring the police to the property. It sucks for the owner for sure, but the next time you complain about how unfair tenant/landlord laws are remember that it's because of people charging tenants for these kinds of things that forced laws favoring the tenants on the books.

Just my 2 cents

Adam

I would certainly not look for a RE attorney, that would be like going to your estate planner to have him represent you in a small claims case. I would look for an attorney with experience in employee retirement plans. Most of the SD IRA firms offer a 401k plan, and most of those firms were started by tax attorneys, in my experience this is a less expensive route than hiring an attorney, but you should certainly explore your options to find out what service will work best for your individual situation. Full disclosure I work for a SD IRA custodian, so my thoughts are obviously a little biased.

Adam