Are free Real Estate Seminars a scam?

Question

I recently came across a add on Facebook for a Free Real Estate Seminar in Maryland hosted by Than Merrill. I’m new to REI and wanted to know are these events a scam to sell you something? I don’t want to waste my time going if it’s a scam.

Ola Dantis · Answer

@LaQuan Bates This is an amazing question, as I felt the same exact way about "FREE" Real Estate events, so I decided to change that by doing our own event, which costs money, a lot to put these things together.

So, we started by charging $50, but honestly, we weren't getting any traction, so we made it FREE and magically we are now nearing capacity.

Definition of a scam: An illegal plan for making money, especially one that involves tricking people.

For this very reason, we are hosting our event and decided NOT to sell anything on the day of the event. There will be NO TABLE at the back of the room pressuring people to give their credit cards details to buy anything. NO SELLING.

However, let's not forget, America is a capitalistic society and businesses (for-profit) are created to earn a profit for value-added services to consumers. And consumers, for the most part, do not place value on things they get for free, and there is the research behind this.

Also, I really liked what @Shiloh Lundahl said about "most people don't do the work it takes to be successful".

With that in mind, investors cannot teach everyone for free as that is not sustainable so there has to be an exchange of value for it to be worthwhile for both parties (coach and coachee).

Are free Real Estate Seminars a scam?

- NO

Can Real Estate Seminars be better ran without the sleazy snake-oil salesman approach?

- YES, that is what we are trying to achieve with our event!

Below is the event in case you want to come see if we SELL you something or not lol

Our event listed on BiggerPockets.

Nick C. · Answer

I don't know if it qualifies as a scam yet, but if you're going for information you will be disappointed. If you want to hear a bunch of unverifiable success stories, rah rah cheerleading, and high pressure upselling, then you will have a lovely time.

Joe Norman · Answer

It depends on what you define as a scam.  From my experience they usually give out a lot of good information, and provide the opportunity to network with other investors, but also have a healthy dose of selling too (buying their packages, coaching, or tickets to the next level seminar).  I wouldn't call that a "scam" necessarily, but it can be intimidating.  As Peter said, just go in knowing that there will be some hard sells, and don't spend money on anything you can't live without.

Shiloh Lundahl · Answer

@LaQuan Bates I agree with @Guy Gimenez and @Joe Norman in that they will certainly sell real estate education at this free event. I don’t think it is a scam though. Or at least not how I would define a scam which would be: someone selling something that is not as it is advertised.

For instance, I wouldn’t consider a black belt karate instructor selling people on how cool it is to be a black belt a scammer even though most people who start karate don’t stick around long enough or put in the all the work that it takes to become a black belt.

I think it is similar with real estate investing education. The instructors sell the idea that real estate investing education can help people financially - which is true. However, most people don’t do the work that it takes to become successful at it. People say paid real estate education is a scam because it costs 40k and many people who pay for the education never do any deals. To me that is not a scam. That is people not following through with what they paid for. So as long as the education company actually provides the services they advertise then I would say it is not a scam. If they make it seem easy, however, then in my opinion, they are scamming people and misleading them because it is not easy. It is a lot of work and that should be emphasized.

I was one one of those who did go to a 3-day event and ended up eventually paying for a 40k education program. In fact, I also paid an additional 30k for private coaching and to increase my access to money. But I am one of those people who did implement the education and created a network which has helped me create over a million dollars through investing in real estate over the past 3 years. The coaching is what probably helped me out the most because it helped me have accountability. And not having accountability is the reason why I think so many people don’t end up following with investing even after they pay for the expensive real estate education.

Dustin P. · Answer

You can use free seminars to network with people beforehand and gets numbers, that's the best use

LaQuan Bates · Answer

@Ola Dantis  Thank you so much for your insight! Just signed up! See you on the 16.

Account Closed · Answer

They Not so much a scam as s free sample in order to get paying sample.

Are free Real Estate Seminars a scam?

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