Don't Believe the Hype - The Age of the Fake Guru

Don’t Believe the Hype - the age of the fake guru.

Let me preface this post with a little about me. I run my local REIA club, and I get a lot of questions about this guru and that guru. I know many of these people personally. I was recently having dinner with one of the best known real estate guru’s in America and we were talking about the frauds, hucksters, charlatans, and outright thieves that prey upon novice investors. So I thought it might be worthwhile to write a post about how to detect the frauds.

Note that I can’t name any of the bad actors by name because they have lawyers and I don’t feel like getting sued, but after this post you should be able to detect them yourself.

#1 – The designated hitter

If you are sitting in a seminar promising to teach you how some magical guru can make you a fat pile of cash, and the actual guru is not in the room, you need to hold onto your wallet.

The guy in the front of the room with the fancy suit is a salesman, he makes ALL of his money by selling you courses. He may know the buzz words of our industry, but he is not a real estate guru at all. The designated hitter is there because he can sell ice to an Eskimo. Don’t fall for his pitch.

#2 – Massive Marketing

The rule of the snake oil salesman is to market to the people who know nothing about real estate investing. They need to operate in channels away from anyone in town who might have a clue.

So the snake oil gurus will come into town with massive media campaigns designed to snare all of the uneducated sheep that they can find.

As a REIA club leader, I can tell you 100% that people like me NEVER let these frauds anywhere near our people. We protect our herd like sheepdogs. My entire reputation hangs on the fact that I have never let a fraud speak in my room. So these guys need to work around people like me. That is why the media blitz when they come to town.

# 3 - Big $ for coaching program.

This is the hook. If anyone ever uses the word “seed capital” or talks to you about upping your credit cards, then you need to find the exit door. Some of these frauds are asking for enough money to buy a small house, all for the privilege of learning what you can learn right here on BP for free.

Many of these so called coaches are actually hourly workers at a call center in Utah, who make less than you do and have never bought or sold real estate in their lives, but they do have a lot of rah-rah on a script.

# 4 – Encouraged to join your local REIA club

While this is generally great advice, many of the frauds use the local REIA clubs to cover up the fact that they have taught their “students” very little.

The game is to direct people to the REIA where they can network and continue to learn. This insures that some of these people will succeed despite the expensive and fairly useless program that they bought.

#5 – Lots of hype, little info

Real gurus teach while they are selling you. They will hit you with a lot of new knowledge and offer value before they ever ask you to bust out your wallet.

The frauds use a lot more smoke, mirrors, and false hype. They hold seminars with fantasy numbers, but offer little info about how you could possibly make money like that unless you BUY their masters level training first.

The more hype vs content that you see, the worse this ends for the student.

#6 – The TV show

A number of the false gods of real estate, seem to have their own TV show, they are famous not because they are successful, but because they can produce a lot of drama for the TV camera. In the world of the real estate investor, there should be minimal drama. Drama is a sign that things are not going well. Do you really want to learn from someone who charges a small fortune and can’t seem to ever make money without chaos or at least a chance that they will lose their ass?

You have officially been warned.