How Much Have You Spent (Invested) on Education/Seminars/Gurus ?

Question

How Much Have You Spent (Invested) on Education / Seminars / Gurus ?

Which ones did you invest in ?

How have you benefited from them ?

What factors led to your decision to buy  ?

• You thought the product would help you reach retirement, or make more money...
• or The person selling the product looked trustworthy and credible... 
• or You are a "Course-Junkie" and buy every course that is sold at the local REIA, from every new speaker that comes in each month...
• or You saw testimonials from other people who had benefited from the course / seminar / guru

Peter B. · Answer

80k.

At 21 I bought a 4 plex for 80k.

It was a c- bulding. Good tenants were difficult to find. The first few years I spent a lot of time in court. This taught me a lot about screening and tenants in general.

When the inevitable repairs came up... I tore into some interesting deffered maintance and cover ups. This taught me about due dillegence. It made it really clear what type of properties to stay away from.

After a few years in I had a really good Idea about actual expenses. So I could then analyze properties much more accurately. It also taught me to never trust owner/agent provided expenses.

The point is, IMO guru training is useless. If you have the capital and the guts... Go out and buy a property. Worst case scenario you won't be much further behind if you spent the money on training and had nothing in hand.

I personally learn better by doing, not by sitting in a seminar.

Shiloh Lundahl · Answer

@Manuel Angeles the 75k that I spent on REI training was worth it. It spring boarded my real estate investing. The year before I went to the training I made about 17k among 3 deals. The year I was in the training I made 95k among 7 deals. This year I have created over 600k among 22 deals that I will get over the next 5 years. And that is 600k for my partner too.

I know the majority of people on BiggerPockets think that spending money on education is a waste of money, but for us it has brought huge returns. Could I have gotten to the point of where I am at right now without spending the 75k? Sure, would I have made 95k my second year or created 600k my third year? Most likely not.

So I believe the real question is “is spending money on a guru training worth it?” For most people on this site I would say no. For me, I would say yes. The same with college though, people can spend 50-100k on college and leave college to get a job making 30-40k while others turn that investment into 100-500k or more. The question to ask yourself is “am I the type of person that would take the money spent on real estate education and be able to multiply it 5 or 6 times in the next year or two.” Because if that is the case, I spent too little.

Account Closed · Answer

I spent $9.95 on Robert Allen's, "Nothing Down", (when it was first published ;-),

$50.00 for a used cassette tape series from Tom Hopkins on "How To Master the Art of Selling"

$100 for a used Carlton Sheets Audio CD series (I forget the title)

$19.95 for "The Pre-foreclosure Property Investor's Kit" by Lucier,

$18.95 for "Making Big Money Investing in Foreclosures" by Conti & Finkel,

spent multi-thousands of dollars in advertising doing pre-foreclosures and fix & flips and making a cool mil in profit, in addition

$1,599 for John Burley's (2) 3 day live sessions (6 days total) on "Creative Financing" including CD's and contracts, (which was awesome and well worth it, but then, I actually apply the information. If you don't apply what you learn, it doesn't matter who you listen to)

then tons more advertising doing more business subject to and buy & hold and then another

$279 for a 3 day refresher with John Burley live

I consider learning to be a life long event. When we love what we do, we will work at it until we become great. I love real estate.

Todd Dexheimer · Answer

Not sure the dollar amount exactly:

$0 on guru courses

$2000 on Real estate club fees/conferences through out the past 9 years

$1000 on RE and business books

$200 on BP

Karen O. · Answer

$850+/-

$99 for guru event

$500 BP membership

$250+ for books

Steve S. · Answer

I have two good personal friends. One is a realtor that put me onto this site. The other is a RE developer. The realtor is always happy to answer any of my questions, and the developer who has purchased well over 100K in books and education, has said I can at any time go down to their office and put my nose in a book.

For that the occasional beer or lunch is well worth the price of education. After that if I have a spare buck or two it will go into funding the next property and project. And I will be happy to take advantage of my local library, and this site for further education.

Shiloh Lundahl · Answer

@Levi T. It may not have been just one thing that changed everything for me but I will share some of the things that changed our business.

1. It got my wife on board with investing more and helped her get over her fear of investing. Before the training she only wanted to use our own personal money, but the training helped her get more comfortable using OPM.

2. It really helped us take actionable steps during the training and throughout the year with weekly phone calls from a coach who warned us against many pitfalls. And helped us analyze deals every week.

3. It helped me raise my sights to what I wanted to do (4 properties) a year to what I’m capable of doing (22 properties in a year thus far).

4. I learned how to leverage OPT, build a system that works for me, and access up to 800k in available credit to invest with.

5. I got contacts to banks that have given me great loans for my rental properties and portfolio loans for my out-of-state properties. It also helped me get over my fear of investing out of state.

6. I got to meet and learn from millionaire real estate investors.

A lot of people on this site may ask if the guru is so successful at investing then why are they teaching. I think it is for variety and they can invest during the week that they are teaching. Often when they weren’t up teaching they we outside on their phones managing their business system.

Levi T. · Answer

Well written, everyone has their own path, that's true. What is the one thing you learned that definitively contributed to you going from 5.6k per deal, to 27.2k per deal?

John Thedford · Answer

I have spent a few thousand on legitimate training such as licensing, additional CE, etc. I just posted about a student that paid $5400 for a class on "wholesaling" that taught BAD info.