John T. Reed’s real estate investment blog

I have long been astounded that anyone would pay for the sort of garbage put out by the many bad real estate gurus. I have been further astounded that they would be happy customers and get mad at me for pointing out the errors and omissions in that material. But then I actually had a dialogue with one Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad) follower and was stunned at the man's profound ignorance of basic real-estate-investment principles. No wonder Kiyosaki and the others can sell this stuff. They target people so completely ignorant of the field that they can tell them...

If the bad gurus are not telling the truth, how come the authorities and/or media have not shut them down? by John T. ReedIf the above question occurs to you, you are very naive about law enforcement and the media.Some have been shut down or restrictedFor one thing, a number of them have been the subject of various enforcement actions including criminal prosecution. If you use your Web browser find function on my guru-rating page, and search for words like jail, bankruptcy, arrest, Fifth Amendment, and so forth, you will find a number of gurus have been pursued by authorities....

After receiving thousands of calls, letters, faxes, and emails over the years, I have concluded that a great many real-estate investors, especially beginners, are seeking real estate investment advice for the wrong reasons. The right reason is to gain useful knowledge before you make your next important real estate decision.ProcrastinationIn fact, large numbers of investors are using the gathering of real estate investment information to procrastinate. Going to seminars, reading books, listening to podcasts, and so forth are much easier than signing your name on the dotted line of a $300,000 offer.Buying real estate is scary. Anyone who has done it...

I have been amazed and disturbed by the recent trend in the real-estate-investment guru business to charge thousands of dollars for seminars, “boot camps,” and “mentoring” services. The State of California Department of Corporations has a list of the Top Ten Investment Scams to Avoid at their Web site (http://www.corp.ca.gov/pub/tips10att.htm). One is, Investment Seminars. Often the people getting rich are those running the seminar money making from admission fees and the sale of books and audiotapes. These seminas are marketed through newspaper, radio, and TV ads and ‘infomercials' on cable television. Regulators urge investors to be extremely skeptical about any get-rich-quick...

Copyright 2006 John T. ReedReal estate investment education consists ofbooksarticlesseminarsone-on-one adviceWhen I first got into real estate investment—as a would-be investor, not a guru—there was no great need for a code of ethics. The various authors and seminar speakers were acting in good faith trying to share their knowledge and experience for a modest amount of money. Those folks made their primary living from investing or brokerage or as lawyers, title officers, loan officers, etc. There were no full-time gurus then. Nor were there any guys who claimed to be full-time investors, but who made that claim in a different...