Investor guru theory from the view of a newer investor

[Pete Ghormley]

I was inspired to write this because of a webinar I was watching of a national RE "guru" who was trying to convince me what he had to offer was the newest secret to real estate investing. My common practice now is I'll either pause the webinar or minimize it as it's running and open a new tab to start researching the internet for more information on the guru and product and service they're trying to sell. I'm fairly new to real estate investing and have already purchased programs and systems from a variety of national real estate investor "gurus". I've developed a theory as a consequence of my practice and as I've become better acquainted with the real estate investing industry. While I don't believe all gurus fall into my theory I believe a great many do. I've begun to notice a lag in the timeline between the content of the program-systems offered and the reality of where the current real estate market is. It seems to me that many of the investing programs-systems (pre-foreclosures, short sales, REOs, etc) were tailored for the time period 2008 - 2012 + or -, the timeline of the crash when foreclosures were at an all time high and during the "recovery" period when banks took control of the properties and then began to put them back out on the market to sell. During this time there were tons of opportunities. Not all but many of the gurus today I've learned had started out in the early 2000s. I think they got started at an opportune time before the market crashed and were able to figure out how to make a killing once it happened. That's where I believe they made their initial fortune and had the leverage to scale their business from there. Over time however, as more investors came on board and competition became fiercer and opportunities for inventory began to shrink they (the gurus) turned to other methods to create money streams for their businesses. Becoming an investor guru was one of them. Many of them developed training programs, systems and boot camps claiming "secret" strategies that would propel their students, mostly newbies, to leap a head of their competition. These programs I've learned would've been most helpful during the most turbulent times of the real estate market. I've done some research into the content and publishing of some of these training programs and find that many of them were produced either toward the end or after the RE market crash. Some other more recent programs I find are derived from other materials or strategies that are regurgitated and put into "newer" programs. There's really nothing new or secret about them. Many of these programs and systems come with monthly memberhip fees. They're very successful at marketing these products and services online through webinars and the like. I'm not opposed to the programs per se as I've learned from many of them but I believe some of them really need to be updated to reflect current market conditions and marketing strategies. I don't think some of the strategies are as effective today as they may have been 5-8 years ago. I believe it's somewhat of a disservice to the students because they'll go out there and employ the strategies at face value not knowing or realizing they are no longer as effective as they once were. Once students begin to realize this they've already spent a lot of time and money in the process and could be very frustrated with the lack of progress. I've also learned that if at the end of a webinar a guru claims whatever they're selling normally sells for thousands but through their "limited time offer" will only charge you $97 then I am now of the belief that there is reason to be skeptical. Do your research even if they say it's only for webinar attendees. It seems more and more of them will send you a replay and give you the same offer. In addition, if the product is supposedly worth thousands why too would they reduce the price another $30 if you hover your cursor over the exit tab. I'm sure it's to create excitement and urgency but why do webinars have to be sooooo long in the first place, sometime more than an hour? They need to be more concise and to the point. They can add some fluff but not too much so that it drags on and on. There are some I genuinely like to catch but I don't have a lot of time to watch it, remember I'm supposed to be running a real estate business! Anyway that's my guru theory. I plan on sticking with RE investing and there are some gurus I continue to follow. There's a lot of great free content on Youtube. I think as a fairly new investor I would recommend, especially to newer investors like me to research before getting involved in a program or system. And to any gurus out there that read this please look at your programs and offer up to date content. Thanks for reading and I would encourage any responses.