All Forum Posts by: Keith Pinster

I'd like to chime in on a couple of the common misconceptions that a lot of people here seem to have, both with education in general and with Renatus in particular.

First, the concept that Renatus is MLM.  People say this because they don't know anything about it.  It is not "multi-level", therefore can't be an MLM.  Sure, they allow their students to market their education product and pay them handsomely for that effort.  So what?  Every company out there markets their product.  Does it make it a "scam" just because they use the people who have been through their program?  That's like a company that does software development giving employees a bonus for referring other good programmers automatically makes the company a "scam".  Again, people don't understand it, but they think their opinion means something regardless.

Second, from what I've seen, Renatus provides *COMPREHENSIVE* education tracks on particular subjects.  Can you learn all this info for free, on your own?  Probably.  But how long will it take you?  How thorough is that education?  You can become a brain surgeon on your own without medical school, too.  How many YouTube videos do you expect someone to watch before they start cutting into your skull?  How many books do you think you would need to read before you become a structural engineer?  

Here's a thought experiment: Let's say that you think you know enough to get started.  You jump into some aspect of real estate investment and in your first year, you make $50k.  Not bad.  But what if you missed HUGE opportunities or made some really rookie mistakes (I'm sure the people who say "do it on your own for free!" never made any rookie mistakes, right?)?  What if you had gone through the Renatus training and you learned enough NOT to make those mistakes and, in doing so, you would have made $80k that year?  Would that $20k in education have been worth it? What if you were able to double what you did and make $100k that year?  Is that $20k worth making another $30k?  

I just turned 58 and when I was 55, I got my bachelor's degree in IT/Software Development from WGU, which is an online, self-paced university.  It took me just over 3 years to go through a 5-year degree program while working full time.  Trust me, I know how to self-study, I have plenty of motivation and drive and I'm not the dullest tool in the shed.  But I don't know how to determine when I've had "enough" training to be relatively sure I'm not going to make a very costly mistake.  

Can you make a lot of money in real estate?  Sure.  Can you lose a lot of money in real estate, if you don't know what you are doing?  Ask these people who are encouraging you to "self-study" for free.  You get exactly what you pay for.

Here's another thought: What if you are in the middle of a flip and you come across a problem with your roof?  You don't know any roofers, so you just pick one out of the yellow pages (yeah, I'm showing my age) and they got 1/2 way done and then went to do another job and it rained, destroying your roof?  Now imagine if you were part of a *COMMUNITY* of investors that go out of their way to help one another?  You need a roofer and one of them says, "Oh yeah I know a guy.  He's done the last 3 of my properties.  I'll hook you up!"  Do you think you could save $5k in that instance? $10k?  $15k?  How many of those would it take to recoup that $20k you spent on training?

I've been trying to break into real estate investing for a long time.  I've gone to several of the "sales pitch" seminars and seen the cons from up close.  I've done 2 real estate deals that cost me almost $100k because I didn't have the education and the community support.

I don't know how many books you've read on real estate, but these people in this thread that are telling you to go it alone and never pay for anything that you can get "for free" have clearly not read or at least understood any of them that I've read.  One of the most common threads in the books that I've read is "BUILD YOUR TEAM!!!"  Buying into Renatus is buying into a team.  It's buying into a community of people who want to help each other.  

I belonged to a REI in Portland, Oregon. It was NOTHING like the Renatus team I'm currently getting involved with. The "education" that was presented at the REI meetings were little more than sales pitches, giving people just enough information to be enticing to go buy their education system and just enough to be extremely dangerous without the rest of the training. With Renatus, when you buy in, there is no up-selling, there is no "pay a little more to get a little more", there is no "you bought the system 3 years ago, so you have to buy it again to get the newest stuff". You pay the ONE TIME fee and you get everything for life. And you get all the NEW stuff, as it comes out, for life. I just went to a meeting last night where the leader was saying that the tax and business classes are remade every single year because the tax laws change every year. Are you willing to go search for TAX LAW information on your own ("for free") and expect to understand the newest changes every year? I don't know about you, but that seems ridiculous and extremely dangerous to me.

I own a 1.66 acre lot of land on the west side of Tucson. I bought it for $500. When I tried to go through a title company, they wanted the sign-off of the husband of the woman who she had divorced over 20 years ago.  They spent 3 weeks searching for him, but never found him.  SO, to get the sale through, we just did a quit-claim deed.  I figured, for $500 the risk was worth it.

Now I need to get the title cleared.  So, my question is, can anyone refer me to a good real estate lawyer in Arizona who can help me with this?  I've talked to one who wanted to charge me $4000, which I think is just ridiculous.  Surely this can be done substantially cheaper than that.  Seems to me that a good paralegal could do the paperwork required.  Can anyone help me out?

Alexander Velez -- The book I mentioned is Emerging Real Estate Markets: How to Find and Profit from Up-and-Coming Areas by David Lindahl.

As an example of finding markets like this, I've recently moved to Tucson because I happen to know that they are building a new freeway on the west side of this city and also happen to know exactly where it's going in.  I also know which zip codes here are still appreciating at 12% to 15% and which ones are sitting stagnant.  As we all know, real estate doesn't move in wild swings, you can see when an area is going to shift months before the prices are affected if you are paying attention.

The other resource that will give you amazing insights into what areas are appreciating, which are depreciating, which are in a bubble and which are severely depressed is www.housingalerts.com.  I've been subscribed to it for a couple of years now and, so far, they have been spot on with their analysis.

By the way, I know what zip codes are appreciating and which aren't because of Housing Alerts.  It's an extremely easy tool to be able to zero in on the markets you want to spend time researching, allowing you to not waste time with markets that won't get you anything.

No matter what people like John Teachout say, RE investing is just like stock market investing.  If you do your due diligence, you can see what areas (or stocks) are going to take off and which ones will tank.  The beauty of Real Estate is that that analysis is available to laymen like you and me.  I have no idea how to research a company to see if its stock prices are going to soar, but it's easy to find a depressed area on Housing Alerts and call the Chamber of Commerce and find out how they plan to bring jobs into the area.  Or, better yet, let Housing Alerts do it for you.

My strategy is to buy and hold as much RE as I can get my grubby hands on.  I'm just finishing up a book by David Greene named Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat that I got here off Bigger Pockets.  He talks a lot about using systems to leverage other people; agents, contractors, lenders, property managers, even friends and family.  If you can do the same thing with Ken Wade's algorithms to find emerging markets, why wouldn't you?  

The combination of Housing Alerts for general knowledge and then Emerging Markets book gives you an advantage over people like John, who are stuck in their own little bubble.

@John Teachout -- Hey John.  Thanks for chiming in.  If you don't know how to find emerging markets, then that's really good news for the rest of us.  Stick to your own market and don't worry about the rest of the country.  It appears to be working for you.

@Carter Butler -- I definitely agree with you about making the leap and your whole post in general.

I have a book that I really liked on how to research market cycles. I'll see if I can find the name and post it here.

I also subscribe to a website that shows details about the cycle various markets. It's expensive, but if you are going to chase markets, it's well worth it. I'll dig up a link and post it here, as well.

@Carter Butler -- I'm curious as to who you've heard say to ignore market cycles. I've heard a lot of experienced investors mention market cycles, but clearly have no idea how to exploit them. The problem with ignoring them, however, is that if they swing at the wrong time (for you), they can cause you to go bankrupt FAST.

You can live off of cash flow, but you build wealth from appreciation. If you don't understand and exploit market cycles, you are counting on pure luck to build wealth.

What kind of minimum investment are you looking for?  

Mike M. "Also, I know there are 57 states because Barack Hussein Obama told us so" -- Man, isn't it great to be so perfect that you never have a slip of the tongue, especially when you are exhausted?  It makes it so much easier to be self-righteous and petty when you want to demonize someone without actually knowing anything about them, doesn't it?  Great job quote-mining!!!

I know with a regular subject to, once you take over the property, you get the original borrower to sign a release of info to send to the lender in order to get you access to the loan info so you can manage the loan with the lender.

If I find a property that is in probate that the PR is willing to sell subject to, how would I go about getting the lender to release the loan info to me (if the PR doesn't have the login info to the lender's website)?  Would that need to go through the probate judge?  How would the PR get access to the deceased's mortgage info?

Follow up question: does anyone know of a good title company that is investor friendly in the Portland area?