Here is the experience that i had with Renatus. this will be a really long post since i want to make sure i paint the whole picture here based off of MY experience with them i know there will be people defending the company since i have seen it on all of the other threads and the have the right to but this is how it went for me.
Disclaimers:
1.) I have been actively working in for 2 years now. During this time i have also been doing a lot of reading about real estate investing as well.
2.) While there are a lot of BAD Realtors out there that don't know what they are doing i'm not one of them.
3.) Heavy researcher when i am looking to learn about something so while, i do say i can learn that for free or for a much lower cost keep in mind that i take the time to understand it and apply it.
4.) I don't take it lightly when i sense that somebody is trying to take advantage of me other others around me regardless if i know them or not.
5.) I'm not against education at all and it does have its place
Okay so now into my experience i was invited to a meeting for the one in downers grove from a guy that I had met this week at a local meet up. We had talked for probably a good 30 to 40 minutes and seemed to make a good connection. The guy never told me the name of the company and lead me on to belief that it was his group or company. Probably because if he knew i would have never came.
Funny enough earlier that day i was on here and saw the name Renatus pop up under the guru section and i clicked on it no reason just did never heard of it before. I started to see the same old story that tend to happen with real estate coaching programs over priced, high pressure sales, preying on the fact that people want to create a better life ETC.... I thought ok they are local so il keep an eye out for them and at least be aware.
So i get there and sign in thinking okay let's see what this is about and network with some like minded people. Keep in mind i don't know that it's a Renatus meeting yet so i go and sit down and wait for things to get started. A guy sets next to me and we start up a quick conversion introducing ourselves come to find out we are both Realtors and made a quick connection.
Then i see the name pop up and i'm thinking ok there's a red flag that's why he made it sound like it was his own company and never said the real name of the company since he knew i was an active member on BP. I gave him the benefit of since he did seem like his heart was in the right place when he invited me so i stayed for a while and it may have been the whole time.
But here is where things started to get me a little irritated while i may be young i have joined a MLM company in the past while i tried it just didn't work out for me. I even tried the rich dad coaching program before but didn't get to finish since it was either pay rent or the monthly payment for the class well i think you know how that went. The information in the rich dad coaching program seemed good just didn't get to finish and they did the same GURU sales crap like i stated before and that time it worked when i should've paid for the class since i didn't really have the spare money for the class in the first place.
Okay back on track so they start the meeting and its the mans wife that had invited me started the meeting and asking everybody there after a few mins of small talk. How many of you worked today, some of us didn't work today since we have our own business( sitting there thinking okay here we go with this GURU crap again) How many want to make more money? people respond like always feeding into the hype and not paying attention to what is really going on here. after a few more of these questions she starts talking about an upcoming event regarding tax planning and strategies HMMMM... perfect timing to hook people in since it's tax season. very good and smart salesman.
They bring up cash flow which is a great game to understand investing and that they will be meeting up to play it. after sometime on that the next event is the big one the CONVENTION with the ceo being there and blah blah blah.
After the flashing some shinny objects in front of people she goes on to introduce the main speaker who just so happens to be the man who invited me. so he starts talking a little about what tonight is about and made it a point to look at what's happening here all of these people are here. Another plot trick of a GURU. He then goes on to explain that the main leaders aren't there since they are working on some kinda investment deal in utah or something along those lines. Next he starts to introduce the people that are there that are part the team there ok cool lets get to know some of the people who work here. after the first guy talks about what he teaches another person started to talk but before, the next speaker can start the main speaker( man who personally invited me and knows i am a working Realtor) asks everybody who would like to know more than their realtor fair question. Goes on to say after you go through the basics class you will know more then 90% of the realtors out there.
Not really a smart move when you know they're people who does this for a living that you invited and while you are trying to sell them something. Remember the other guy setting next to me that was also a realtor well we both looked at each other and then looked at the speaker grabbed our stuff and headed towards the door. As i'm grabbing my stuff the speaker noticed that i'm leaving and notices that he has at least lost two sales goes into right away i'm not trying to sell you anything "TONIGHT" as he is practically standing right in front of me to make me sit back down and not make a fool of him.
Since while yes most realtors don't know much about investing and i know this to be true that wasn't the issue with what he said. It was about how he said it which was very cocky and there is a lot to being a realtor that can't be taught you just have to learn from experience like most jobs when you work with people.
So now me and the other realtor thought about staying after the pitch to at least be able to network and see what would come out of this but it was a 2 1/2 hour presentation so we weren't so sure if we would stay yet . As we are talking in the hallway the speaker's wife walks up to us interrupts our conversation and said you can network afterwards let's just go back inside the meeting. the other guy i was speaking with said ok we will be back in there in a few minutes . she walks away and about one minute later she comes back and this time tries harder and almost forcefully to get us to come back in the room. Since im sure us leaving in front of a packed room must of really hurt all the hype they had going on. Again we told her we will go back in a few minutes and to let us finish what we were talking about.
I looked at the guy i was talking with and said "Ok now that pissed me off i'm leaving he agreed" we talked for a few minutes outside finishing what we were talking about before and left.
Now by no means am I saying the the programs is bad because I wasn't there long enough to hear about and I didn't sign up and take any classes. The one thing i can say though from the little i did hear did sound like solid information but for me personally none of what they said was insider info or hard to find. all of the things can be found on here and in some books for 1000 times less money while you may spend more time finding the info i would rather spend more time than money when first starting out. $2000-$15,000 from what others on here have said i have no where near that much money spent and have a solid foundation that i'm know taking action on.
So buyers beware trust but always verify everything in real estate because they are always people looking to take advantage of new investors that just don't know any better.
