A Guide to Real Estate Investing Courses and Seminars

I have spent thousands of dollars on real estate investing courses and seminars during my 16 year career in rental property investment. Have I recovered my investment? Undoubtedly yes, but I have also wasted lots of money that I didn't need to waste. Hopefully, I can give you some insight into my experiences so that you can learn from them.

The trouble I have with real estate investing courses is the amount of money that real estate guru's charge for them. In many cases the quality of the information is not that good. The cost to produce the materials are at most less than $100 (and for some e-books almost nothing) yet these self-proclaimed guru's feel that they can charge $500 to $1500 for their courses. To me this is outrageous and one of the reasons I created this website.

For the beginner or someone who is interested in modest investments in rental property (say one or two purchases per year), it really is not necessary to spend the money to attend a real estate seminar or to buy most real estate investing courses.

Real estate seminars can cost several thousand dollars to attend and most of the speakers are there to sell you their $1500 real estate investing course at a "special price" of "only" $999!!! Unfortunately, this gives the public the impression that investors are greedy capitalists. But P.T.Barnum's observation that there is "a sucker born every minute" is more apt (I'm included here!)

Don't get me wrong - real estate seminars are very motivational and can inspire you to start on a path to financial freedom. Or they can get you into lots of unnecessary credit card debt. If you have already bought some investment rental property and want to make a career of this, it might be worth attending a seminar, otherwise stay away.

An excellent source of information on real estate courses is John T. Reed. He provides a guide to real estate investment guru's. Most of his reviews are negative which does not surprise me.

There are two courses that I recommend:

• Dave Whisnant is an Atlanta attorney turned investor. His course is fairly low priced at less than $400 but contains lots of useful information. His specialty seems to be searching public records which I consider to be worth the price of the course alone. Like most guru's he is prone to some hype but overall he provides lots of details on marketing and rehab which are good. John Reed takes some issue with his approach to credit repair but I used his techniques to raise my credit score 100 points and I didn't do anything shady to accomplish this. Overall a value buy.



• Pete Youngs provides a rehab course that is second to none in my opinion in regards to getting the best price on home improvements. After purchasing his course, I set up my company at a local wholesale distributor and saved about $3000 for replacement windows over the price Home Depot quoted me. I've probably saved $30,000 overall from implementing his ideas. Unfortunately, he charges $1200 for his course which, in my opinion, is way too much. I bought his course on Ebay for $200 and still see other used rehab courses there. If you can get a used Pete Youngs course buy it now!




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So next time you go to your local Real Estate Investment Club meeting and a guru is speaking, be careful before you fork over hundreds of dollars for their "great deals". You can get most of the information much cheaper by buying real estate books. On the other hand most people never make much of a commitment to make changes in their lives until they have money on the line. If that's you, shop around and see if you can find a cheap/used course to whet your appetite.



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