To piggyback on Jay's point, generally speaking I think the kind of personalities that are really good at real estate are the opposite of the kind of personalities that are really good at self promotion and presenting. 

I”m sure the ROW agent is evaluated/promoted on how much he can get done for the city at the lowest cost.

You are investing in the investment promoter in whom you have little recourse if things go wrong.

Quote from @Travis Timmons: My take is that if a fund has an influencer's name attached to it, they're core competency is promotion and fund raising rather than being a good operator.

Quote from @Evan Polaski: @Jay Hinrichs, while I wasn't going to call them MLM, I did attend an Armando Montelongo (A&E's Flip this House from mid 2000's) seminar at a hotel conference room in 2007 or 08, which was the free funnel to spend $1,500 for a three day seminar or $25,000 for an in-person mentorship.I have seen similar promoted with Christina and Tarrek from Flip or Flop more recently.I didn't start realizing how profitable education can be until the last 5 or so years.  

**Limited Flexibility in Marketing:** The program often promotes fix-and-flip strategies, which may not align with everyone’s investment goals.

@Jay Check Are you a real account or is this just another promotion for a lying guru?

did 3   one broke even only because sponsor made everyone whole at exit which I suspect is quite rare.other two are perking along.. these were Class A apartments in Upper mid west promote was not some sky rocket return and frankly I can do better on my own.. but it was end of year so I was looking for some cost seg. 

There are small communities in Texas where the 3 or 4 small brokerages in town just keep a list between themselves or have created a Facebook group among themselves to promote their listings.I have run across a few Brokers over the years that just worked with buyers in the purchase of HUD/VA foreclosures and were not Realtors and therefore not members of a Board/MLSHowever, in any MLS that I have been involved with if the Broker is a member of the MLS, all of their agents are also required to be members. 

My guess is that the promotions feature will turn into a variable commission model in the future (20% Discount, Airbnb offers 10% to the customer and pockets the 10% in extra Commissions).