This post is more of a pondering than a question... I was thinking this morning, after getting my 30th email from one "guru" or another trying to sell me a system or information.
Here are a few of the systems I have looked at:
- Cameron Dunlap - Some good information, a pretty decent platform with iFlip, but WAY too much money for what they are offering. Seriously, $97 per month to have them host your URLthat you have to buy and then they only allow you to have 2 subdomains on your account. GoDaddy (or any other) .com runs approx $15/year, Zoho mail will let you use their mail for FREE with your URL so you can have you @yourdomain .com from them for no additional cost, up to 10 users... heck they even let you customize it with your own logos and offer a custom login screen mail.yourdomain.com with your logo... The real benefit that I see with the iFlip is the CRM and the Lead manager, pretty nice, but you can use the BP calculators to do much of the same things for leads... $1000 for "No Fee" Transactional Funding" and $297 so he can sell you a $50 Financial Calculator and a walkthrough that you can find on YouTube... If you don't know how to do TVM calculations there are even quick apps for your phones that do them without the convoluted calculator steps and they are at most $14.99.
- Cody Sperber, the "Clever Investor" - He is pretty clever, at picking your pockets. The "all new" M5 system uses an integration of Instapage (free and pay options) and Podio (free) they also use an SMS integrator etc... could be a really powerful system if they actually trained you how to use it effectively. Not worth the money otherwise.
- Capital Rehab Group - Their $47 DVD set including the "vault" of private lenders and the "7 House Flipping Secrets They Don't Want You to Know About" is a total joke... Their approach can be summed up this way: Step 1: Find a cheap house on the MLS. Step 2: Paint and Cosmetic repairs. Step 3: Sell on MLS below market value. (there I just saved you $47 dollars) The "vault" is a reprint from a service like "Private Money Goldmine." The so-called "7 secrets" are all on YouTube and in BP... nothing new just repackaged claptrap.
- Preston Ely - what is there to say?... it was a joke.
- Private Money Goldmine - This is essentially a list of Hard Money Lenders, my favorite was Steve Snyder, I tried contacting him via their information - yeah, wasn't until I found him here on bigger pockets that we actually connected.
- Kent Clothier - Great idea, quite expensive. I understand this guy really is active and he is the brains behind Memphis Invest... He has even done a podcast on the science of flipping episodes 58 & 64. My bog problem with his program is the $1495 price tag though the $199 annual fee seems reasonable enough. They do offer a 30-day money back guarantee though I am oft leery of programs that cost a fortune and offer to give you your money back...
There are more but these are the most active at the moment as far as I can tell...
All told I think it is quite possible that these "Gurus" make much of their money from selling information and peddling dreams more that they do in Real Estate. They each claim that their programs cost them 10's of thousands of dollars to create and therefore, you are getting an amazing deal... but even it cast them $100,000 to create the system, they sell is at $1000, after 100 suckers, I mean customers, they are breaking even... Because they hype the systems and talk a smooth game, they will easily outperform their $100,000 every couple months, and the hoops that you need to jump through to get a refund leave many unsatisfied and frustrated without their refunds. Think about it... 500 people sign up a year, that is half a million in revenues without working more than a few days a year... No properties to flip, rehab or rent, no contractors, tenants or other annoyances to bother you... just cashing fat checks every month... And that is not even counting the 50/50 split money from deals done by students after they pay upwards of $20,000 for "Mentoring."
Be careful out there...
~James
