@Ryan F. You can find Brad on Facebook and message him directly. Add him as a friend. If you don't do FB, or you don't get a response (I've seen him ask others inquiring about the program to PM him, so he must check it regularly), message me directly and I can give you an alternate contact.
I think you have a good question about why there were "only" 25 deals. I thought it was an impressive number and hadn't thought of it the way you are, but I am going to take a stab at explaining it, and hopefully it will make more sense:
There are indeed hundreds of attendees at the R2R seminars, but not all of them become students. I didn't join the first time I attended myself. Some are just browsing/kicking tires - the cost is by far the lowest I have ever seen for a two-day real estate seminar (usually others are at least $1000), let alone one where 90% is actual education and only a small amount of time is spent pitching the expensive student programs. I recommend it to anyone even thinking of getting involved in multi-family real estate investing, and I am sure others do too, so naturally a lot of people in attendance decide not to take the next step for various reasons.
Here are some round numbers....I have no idea whether they are accurate, but they should be close enough to illustrate the point. Let's say there are 300 there. At least 100 are already students - they volunteered to help put on the event, or for more education since Brad updates the content every time. That leaves 200 potential new students. Again, most do not join the program. Some get sticker shock at the cost and take no action, and either continue to browse other programs or give up on real estate entirely. Some were already experienced and decide they don't need a mentor or additional education, and go back to their existing business. Some have no experience, but felt the crash course they received that weekend was all they needed, and become an investor on their own without joining the program. Some were only there for the networking and never intended to become a student. I've attended R2R twice, and based on the number of people I've seen lining up to register, I estimate about 50 join as students that weekend. Most of them join Foundations, which means they are not going to do their own deals and just want to invest passively in other people's deals. (I fall into that group).
So I'd guess Brad has a few hundred students at most. Most of them are Foundations students who are not even looking for deals. The number of personal students who want to acquire properties is probably less than 100. Maybe even less than 50. So why did they all not buy something in 2015? Here are reasons I can think of:
1. Many work together to partner on a deal. A seller is more likely to consider an offer if it's coming from someone with a lot of experience. So someone inexperienced is better off with a partner than trying to go it alone. Therefore, many of those 25 deals involved 2 or more students working together. I should also point out that many (if not most) of those deals were syndications that involved 10 or more investors. So there may be quite a few more students involved in each one than you think.
2. Some have day jobs and want to find a deal, but get busy and didn't spend as much time searching as they intended.
3. Since Brad is based in Dallas and holds his seminars there, naturally a large proportion of his students are from the area, and are focusing their search there. The market is hot. It's a great place to invest, but it's no secret, and there is a large amount of competition from local, national and international buyers. Some of it is "dumb money." Some are perfectly sophisticated buyers who simply have lower expectations than the double-digit annual returns that Brad's students want. It's hard to compete with those buyers. So in this market, when following Brad's criteria, it may very well take more than a year to find a good deal, especially if you've never done one. I hear that once you get one under your belt, you have credibility and the second one comes a lot more easily.
4. Some students have acquired quite a few properties in the last few years, and are making enough money that they are no longer searching at all.
5. Some have decided to strike off on their own and no longer consider themselves students, but are still doing deals and those would not be counted in that 25.
Well, this was a long post. If you made it this far, hope it was helpful. I've only been a student about 5-6 months, but I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
