All Forum Posts by: Scott Trench

I think that there's a component of vote/post ratio (especially for folks working on their first 100 posts here as well) that has to do with adding value. We need to find a way to reward high quality, human generated content, and deprioritize low value posts to discourage workarounds. 

That will solve the root cause. But, until then, please just report the AI posts and we will moderate them.

Thanks, @Calvin Thomas - This is helpful feedback. For the record, I am not the founder. I took over from the Founder in 2017 when he sold the business and stepped away. I have been lucky enough to continue to be chosen to lead the company by our investors. 

My charter, expectation, and belief is long-term growth. I love BiggerPockets, and was a fan of the company before I ever joined as an employee. My job is to fulfill our vision as a complete one stop shop for investors to go from newbie to early retiree.

Absolutely, to get there, and to make money, we have to provide so much value that people not only decide to come, but to come back to, our conferences and events. We have to generate so much value that people choose to watch, re-watch, and keep watching (or listening to) content we put out, using our site, etc. It all starts from value. 

I think that if you look back at 2022 and 2023, you WILL find that there were some gurus who got into the fabric of our content ecosystem. I began the work, with our team of putting an end to that in Q3 2023, and there should be little to nothing of gurus pumping syndications, masterminds, courses, etc. in our content in 2024. If you can find that example, let me know, it should be a rare miss from our team, not the theme.

I fully understand that the sentiment of alignment with sensational gurus is embedded in some folks minds and will take time to unwind, but there should be zero recent examples to point to. If there are, I will talk to the team.

@Anton Mattli Could you please provide a recommendation on how we can sustain a business with another model? 

Either the LP will pay a fee for private advice, or the GP will pay to get in front of potential investors. 

We have opted for a hybrid approach - LPs who want to pay for access can get an exclusive network, privately discuss operators, privately review and see other LP reviews of sponsors, and discuss "red flag" sponsors. 

LPs who do not want to pay for access can learn from free content, and we will fund that content from sponsorships, which may include from capital raisers. 

Didn’t peerstreet offer this until recently?

We are working on this here at BiggerPockets! Try playing around with the “Find Deals” tool and go to the advanced settings tab. Filter properties by geography and “rental yield” and get alerts when new inventory that meets your criteria hits the market.

Let us know about any feedback you have and expect iterations on this in the back half of the year and into 2025!

 You have nothing to apologize for. You are a new investor, learning and asking a question. 

I think it's just math. 

I bought a house this year, and I bought in cash. My interest rate, if I had financed it would have been +7%+, unless I did an ARM.

If I put the money in the stock market, and got a 10% return, well, after tax on the gains, that return is more like 7.5%. A .5% post-tax "spread" between highly volatile projected stock market returns, and the guarantee of a 7% return (by not having a mortgage payment) just makes no sense, to me. 

I'm not bold enough to buy real estate at negative leverage - few deals in my area (and I presume, Manhattan), are trading at "Cap Rates" greater than 7%. 

But, I am willing to buy real estate all-cash. It's a good long-term store of value, and produces tax advantaged income. As I build my cash position, I may buy another, all cash, property in the next year or two. I will lever it lightly with assumable debt, or not at all, and keep this conservatism going until cap rates are ~100bps above interest rates on property of reasonable quality and nearby where I live and operate my business.

If that happens next year, I’ll cash out refi to a moderate debt level and buy! If that happens 30 years from now, I’ll build wealth very slowly for a few decades.

 Bob - get a load of this:

- Mentor charges broke student thousands of dollars to get into wholesaling. Broke student had no money before the course, but now has a $5K - $10K credit card balance now after paying for high priced wholesaling and get rich quick education.

- Obviously, student is not going to be buying a house anytime soon, much less making cash offers. Student would not be happy with mentor to be even broker, and still unable to buy real estate.

- So, mentor, who takes in millions from $5K - $10K coaching program, takes $1-2M and sets it aside in a bank account. They install a virtual assistant, and when broke students call in for POF letters, a virtual assistant signs on mentor's behalf, saying that, technically, funds exist which could be used to buy the property. The POF letter does not say that student had the funds (though it heavily implies it and the student certainly implies this when presenting offers to would be sellers), rather it says that "funds are available to purchase the property."

Mentor’s virtual assistant processes these letters, and the $12 fee is just to cover the costs. The profit center is the coaching program.

- Perhaps, once in a blue moon, with a particularly popular “student” or screaming good deal, the mentor actually uses the funds in the account to purchase a property.

Do have outright Fraud? I guess technically not.

Letters being used to trick desperate old people? Probably.

And what? We are going to rip on the 20-something broke kid who was probably recruited into the program by someone they trusted with an MLM type vibe? Maybe someone who thinks they are legitimately trying to make something of themselves, not knowing that most of the industry thinks the practice is unethical? 

Maybe the “student” deserves some blame, but the punishment, in my view is more than served by the huge failure rate in the wholesaling industry, coupled with the near total loss on the educational investment.

All illustrative, of course. But, this is the kind of “real estate investing” that people can go learn about somewhere other than BiggerPockets.

@Saad D. - This is BiggerPockets "Deal Finder" - you can use this as a pro member by checking out the link at the top of the screen. 

Thanks for being a pro member, and now we have to figure out why you weren't aware of this awesome new tool! 

You are missing a poison that is not the fault of the person posting, but rather of high priced educational salespeople in the wholesaling industry. 

 This industry of wholesaling has an absolutely disgusting practice of encouraging “wholesalers” with no money, no job, and no income, to get a “proof of funds letter”. This is encouraged, in many cases, as part of a high priced program touted by a guru. 

This letter is ridiculous. It implies that funds are available to purchase the property. Where the letters aren’t outright fraudulent and lies, they are misleading, with the person selling or giving the proof of funds letter to the unqualified wholesaler doing zero due diligence on the property and at best stating that, technically, funds could exist and or be set aside for the purchase of the property,

The practice, when used this way is meant to mislead, and those who ask for, give out, or receive, proof of funds letters in this way are not welcome here on BiggerPockets.

The right answer here is to qualify for a loan on the property personally, and show this to a seller, or to be straightforward with the seller that you are in no position to buy the property personally, but will be wholesaling it for them. 

Or... better yet... get a license and represent them as a seller's agent.