6. Emphasis on motivational material. Every successful person I know has benefited from motivational books like The Power of Positive Thinking. Many of us have had life experiences like emotional high-school football pep talks which gave dramatic evidence of the power of focused motivation. I would not diminish the role of motivation in success in real estate or any other field. However, motivational material ought to be packaged as such.
When books or tapes are described as containing how-to information on real-estate investment, they ought to contain little or no motivational material. The protest that the customer "needs" to be motivated is beside the point. It is dishonest to promise how-to information, then deliver a bunch of "You-can-do-it" platitudes instead. The motivational business, like patriotism in Samuel Johnson's memorable phrase, is one of the last refuges of scoundrels. Although there are many who approach the field of motivation with rigorous scientific discipline, there are more for whom the motivation business is merely a con -- a chance to sell yet another cure-all "elixir" without having to get FDA approval.
7. Claim to do lots of deals. Virtually all the B.S. artists say, "I don't just teach these techniques. I use them every day in my own investment program." Baloney. There aren't enough hours in the day.
Gurus get the same 24-hour days as you. Being an expert takes time. We have to read many trade journals, loose-leaf services, and books to keep up to date. We have to spend hours on the phone interviewing sources for articles and books -- and hours in the library researching legal cases and other relevant facts. As experts, gurus get interviewed by the media on the phone and in radio and TV studios and they make speeches to investors. Finally, we have to manage the guru business itself. That means designing brochures, responding to customer-service problems, checking proofs from the printer, indexing books, negotiating with printers and recording studios, going over the income and expenses of the guru business, and so forth.
Obviously, we do not, after all that, have as much time as non-gurus do for investing. But in the financial guru business, the question, "Are you using these techniques yourself or just teaching them?" is ubiquitous. And any answer but, "Oh, yes," seems devastating to the credibility of the guru. In fact, real-estate gurus (other than those who just dabble in guruing) who do a deal a month or more are extremely rare. Or they are buying garbage properties by the dozen---with little or no analysis or due diligence---mainly so that they can claim they do lots of deals and be technically accurate.
You can smoke out such gurus by simply asking them for the addresses of some of the properties they have owned. I put the addresses of all the properties I ever owned at my Web site. I have asked a number of other real estate gurus to give me one or more of the addresses of properties they have owned. I got zero response. Either they are lying or their deals are illegal and they cannot stand any scrutiny.
8. Offer to invest in your deals. The bad real-estate gurus are really just salesmen. As such, one of their main problems is how to overcome the objections of prospective customers. They target the less affluent and they are selling investment advice, so one of the most common objections they get is, "I don’t want to buy your course because I have no money to invest." To overcome that objection, some dishonest real-estate gurus have been saying that they will invest in deals that you bring them.
It's a lie. They may have invested in one or two just so they could say they did, but no more. Paying such finders fees violates brokerage laws in some states like New Jersey. Securities and brokerage laws may be triggered in other states. The quality of the deals submitted by their armies of novices must be fall-down-laughing abysmal.
Joe Kaiser told me he invested in some of his student's deals, but refused to give me any of the addresses of the deals in question so I or my readers could confirm them. The real-estate world is full of investors and developers who provide the addresses of their properties in brochures, annual reports, directories, on the walls of their offices, in magazine ads, and in news releases. I put the addresses of every property I ever owned at my Web site. But no other guru will provide a single address. Ya gotta wonder why.
This is a variation on the classic advance-fee-loan scam. One of the classic frauds that con men perpetrate is called the "advance-fee-loan" scam. In it, a con man finds a person who is having trouble getting a loan and offers them a loan. Often, there is some bogus explanation, like 'It's offshore money," to explain why the con man can get you a loan when no one else can. When you accept, the con man tells you there is a small fee for the paperwork or some such. In fact, the con man is purely in the business of collecting the fees and running. There is no loan.
The real-estate-investment variation on this is to tell you that the guru will help you buy property by putting up the down payment or by advising you or by teaching you how to buy for nothing down. The nothing-down con involves various approaches from "motivated"-seller financing to government loans to lease options to flipping to finding partners to "bring me the deal and I will put up the money to buy it and split the profits with you." In fact, the con man is purely in the business of taking your "advance fee" in the form of a retainer or the cost of "training" or "mentoring" or high-priced book-and-tape courses. They have no interest in investing in deals you bring them. It is a lie to get you to part with the advance fee. Their various techniques for buying nothing down do not work in the real world. They just lie to you to get the advance fee.
I got an email from a reader who told me there was a story in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette newspaper about a real estate investment guru who was in trouble with the law. The story is at http://www.post-gazette.com/neigh_city/20020808cburbs9.asp. According to the article, 61-year old Michael Enelow was indicted on 29 counts of wire and mail fraud by a grand jury in connection with a real estate investment scam. He reportedly ran ads in periodicals around the U.S. from 1995 through 2000 offering money to people who would refer real estate deals to him. The indictment said he lied about how much money he had and how many deals he did. He charged $1,500 to sign up and got over a thousand people to send him that much. (1,000 x $1,500 = $1,500,000) The FBI said Enelow lived off the $1,500 charges and that his real estate dealings were insignificant.
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