I wasn’t going to post today. I had a closing and a showing and a contract cancellation to deal with. But I just got an email from a young man who wants to start real estate investing and he went to a guru (Rich Dad Poor Dad) seminar and said they wanted $35,000 for real estate investing education!!!!!!!! AAArrrrggggghhhhhh.
Here is my response to him and to anyone thinking about real estate investing. Yes, you can build wealth. Real wealth. Yes, real estate is a land of opportunity…and danger…right now. No, there is no free lunch. Feel free to comment or argue with whatever I said.
**** **** ****
While I am not familiar with the New Jersey market I was just out at Princeton with my son and saw for sale signs everywhere. We are in the worst real estate crisis since the late ’70s and early ’80s. But I can assure you that there are many realtors that make well into the six figure through hard work and perseverance. $2,000 to start your own business and get started? That’s chump change compared to any other business you may want to start. I know, I’ve owned (and still do) other businesses as well.
I do not work with “bottom feeding” real estate investors and they don’t want to work with me. I believe in buying at discount (realistic discount, not the garbage you are fed at seminars and tape huckster events) and building wealth slowly. You can read all you need to know about real life real estate investing on my blog at http://www.bbqcapital.com or at an associates blog at http://www.bawldguy.com.
The investors I work with don’t mind at all knowing I’m making a commission or consultant fee when I’m helping them to create equity positions of 10% or 20% or 30%. They know professionals get paid for their time and expertise.
You need to understand how much mis-information and general grade BS there is in real estate investing. Sure, anything can work once. But can you do it enough to be profitable? Ask yourself this, is it more profitable to buy all these houses with no money down and “alternate financing” or is it more profitable to hold a seminar and charge would-be investors thousands and thousands of dollars to tell them how to do in mass what you haven’t been able to do more than a few times?
If their techniques work so well why are they not doing them? And don’t give me this crap that they “love to teach.” Robert Allen and Robert Kiyosaki and Carlton Sheets do far more harm than good. (Insert rantings of the millions of followers who will tell me those guys are all wealthier than I am. They are correct. I refuse to charge $35,000 for “education” when I could take the client’s $35,000 and help them leverage themselves into a couple or several properties.)
Listen, I could go on and on and on. You are doing the right thing by educating yourself before jumping in. (Education is something Kiyosaki derides, am I correct?) Do yourself a favor, pick up a phone and call me. My number is 913.568.1579. Or call my friend and associate (and dare I say mentor) Jeff Brown over at BawldGuy.com and talk to him.
Or do some google research:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/RealEstate/NothingQuickAboutGettingRichWithRealEstate.aspx
I am not a “dream stealer.” I’m a professional real estate agent and investment property counselor. I work with first time investors and investors with portfolios of dozens of properties. I don’t know anyone, personally, who has actually accumulated any wealth with no money down strategies and the like. It will take money by you to actually be an investor. It will take a lot of sweat, too. And sometimes you have to be downright creative.
At your age if you get started with one, and then another you could retire a very wealthy young man. But build with a real plan. Not a pipe dream.
Give me a call. I love talking real estate.
Chris Lengquist
Keller Williams Realty
913.568.1579
