I went to the Fortune Builders seminar last weekend...

[Jason Borowy]

So I went to the FB seminar last weekend.  I was amazed at how much money FB spent on advertising for their "free seminar."  It caught my attention and I called and signed up.  Anyway there were only about 150 people that showed up.  In the first quarter of the seminar they asked anyone who was interested in signing up for their three day course for $197 Aug 22-24 that they should do it right away.  After that announcement many people left.  It makes me wonder what they were doing there in the first place.  Did they think that FB wanted to just help people get rich with out doing anything?  I can understand if people left after finding out about the $197 and could not afford it.  They did share a lot of information on what they are doing in the market, as far as wholesaling and rehabbing. So I thought that amount of money would be worth three days of instruction for someone that is new.  I am reading all of the material and reading these great blogs on biggerpockets.  At this point I have not made any deals, but am learning a lot from all of the materials I received from FB and biggerpockets.  I will keep everyone posted as to what happens at the 3 day Seminar.  I do know that FB's ultimate goal is to get people to give them $25K for a mastery course with a coach.  Although this sounds good to someone with a lot of money to invest in education it does not sound good to me right now.  I am looking forward to going and learning as much as I can before I start my real estate investing career.  Thank you for reading this far and if you have any info you think I should know about FB I would be more than happy to hear what you have to say. 

[Brandon Lee]

Jason,

I am a graduate of the program. 

It is NOT for anyone and everyone. But it certainly is NOT a scam in the sense that the material is 'wrong' or 'fake', but I would definitely question some of the statements they make in their marketing efforts.

Fortune Builders' material is geared towards making a business out of flipping a home. Their intent is not necessarily to make you a 'casual' flipper.

Also, a lot of their material is geared towards the mid-west/east coast market. Some of the strategies they teach in their course definitely do not apply in certain markets (especially mine).

Their 'coaching' is probably the biggest issue I have with them, what was delivered was drastically different than what they communicated they would deliver. When I went through the program, their 'coaching' was summed up as once a week coaching calls for 30 minutes with a coach that may or may not be local or understand your local market. That is imperative as a newbie to have someone accessible and knowledgeable of the local market. Even the radio advertisement said they had a "small" "local" team -- this is completely false. 

When I signed up, there were 3 busloads of people who also signed up with me. That was over 18 months ago, and to this day, there are only 6-7 people that I am aware of (out of the 3 busloads) that are still doing it today.

Most people are successful because 1.) They have a business background or Real Estate background or 2.) They went in full time.

That being said.. there is more than enough information on biggerpockets to get started in investing. The real value that FortuneBuilder really provides is business systems to streamline what you are doing and scale.