Gurus, their actual qualifications, and have they been through the wringer before...

[Doug Smith]

Here’s rant #2 for the day. I have a preliminary call in a few minutes with a person that wants to get into private lending and wants to engage our loan consulting side to assist. When we asked “what they were currently doing, what they planned to do, and how we could help.” The response was that they paid a guru to teach them how to do 100%, 2nd mortgage financing to real estate investors for purchases and down payments. I looked this person up and they have a bajillion followers/disciples (I think bajillion is a number). The guru has zero lending background…zero. They also didn’t even get into anything remotely real estate-related until 2011. They also had a professional license taken back by regulators. The guru has never seen nor have they survived a downturn. Do you see all those commercials by Baltimore Oriole great Jim Palmer touting those 100%-125% 2nd mortgage loans? Me neither. That company went belly-up during the last crash long before this guru even thought about real estate investment let alone finance. I’ve done this 33 years now. I’ve seen high-highs and low-lows. To you folks that are paying gurus to learn lending, make sure 1) they actually have a formal credit/lending background and 2) make sure they went through at least the last major crash of 2007-2009 and lived to tell about it. To those who are doing 100% financing for down payments and EMDs…a train is coming. I highly advise that you get off the tracks. End of rant #2 for the day.