You May have been to a Guru seminar if..........You believe brokers will continually submit deals to you although you have no capitalYou believe lenders look at the property ONLY when considering whether to lend you money, so that your multiple bankruptcies, credit score of 490, and $80,000 in credit card debt won't matterYou think that commercial real estate sellers will accept post dated checks for $100 as sufficent earnest money.You believe no seller is sharp enough to see through the numerous “weasel” clauses you put into your purchase contractsYou are persuaded that the only difference between a $1000 transaction and a $1,000,000 transaction are the amount of 0'sYou believe everyone who critsizes your plan is jealeous and wants to see you failYou believe that 20 years of hands on experience, a four year college degree in real estate and yearly mandatory education seminars can be trumped by the “intense training” 3 day seminar you just paid $7000 for.You believe that the $7000 you just borrowed on your newly increased credit line to pay for that seminar is an “investment”You can't believe people actually wasted $80,000 and four years of their life learning “useless” information in collegeYou believe assembling your real estate “team” is your key to success and a necessary first stepYou believe you can actually contract with the best “players” in the industry although you have no experience, capital, or track recordYou believe that once you find the deal that fits the formula money will come to youYou believe that your Guru has provided you with exclusive information on how to find “bargain” dealsYou believe one in a life time “steals” are an everyday occuranceYou believe you can be successful working “the system” on just weekends and holidaysYou believe the Guru got rich by actually doing real estate deals rather than by using a slick promotional sales and training systemYou believe the personnel provided to assist you are actually real estate investors who actually have experience and knowledge and aren't just some failed salesman reading from a scriptYou believe you're the first person to think of using BiggerPockets as your source of wholesale leads or to build a buyer listYou believe wholesaling is investingYou think the term is “whole selling” not wholesaling.

That term doesn't suffice because a note buyer typically doesn't incur a note to payoff when they are buying a note.Using the numbers you used in the podcast- Say you bought a property for 90K and the sellers have a 5.5 30 year fixed mortgage.

Are you aware that my University credits would suffice to TREC for class credits or are they particular that those classes be taken in Texas?

Many times, Skype, emails, and phone calls will suffice. 

Regular renters insurance will not suffice.

If it is rigid ductwork, perhaps that coating that duct cleaners sell will suffice.  

Suffice it to say that Realty Mogul structures theirs a lot differently than other companies.  

I'll spare the details, but suffice it to say, it was not a money maker.

I mean, would doing due diligence on the property first, and then making an offer suffice?

And the only way to figure it out is to get data, data, data.Perhaps we can all agree that having a simple to use rule of thumb like the "50% Rule" is great to do a first-pass approximately of a deal, but that nothing replacing a full due diligence and financial analysis before actually purchasing.As for Bryan's other point about analyzing discounted cash flow (what some people refer to as net present value or NPV analysis), this is something that is tremendously important if you're going to be investing on a larger scale, and it's sad that more investors (in my experience) don't have any clue about NPV and its implications.I think I'll write a BP blog post on the subject, but suffice it to say, anyone reading this thread that doesn't understand NPV should do some research on the subject...