Our industry is facing some obstacles as it is and having snakes sneaking through the grass like that only puts the business as a whole in a bad place.Good thing your hard/honest work speaks for itself and your clients know who really has their best interest in mind.Thanks for sharing this and I wish you the best of luck along the way!

@Edward Yoo that is a good example of industry standards.Can you charge for parking?

Its a stain on the industry frankly.

But they still buy property: assuming a 20% down payment. for example: industry standard is: 20% to 30% down payment right: so if the home is 100k : they assume a 20k down payment 80k loan: and they want to get a ROI of at least 'X' (for them is usually 10% to 12% return on their money (on the 20k down payment and any renovations and closing costs expenses). 

So I kicked the habit - I stopped going to seminars and started to apply some of those ideas that were preached by speakers who were experts at extracting fees from me.I started to attend real estate auctions, studying the process - watching others make a lot of money - I decided to get a credit line - increase my credit card limits and started looking for properties (cheap- ugly buildings) in the neighborhood where real estate auctions were taking place - my primary goal at this time was to learn the market in the area where I wanted to control real estate - I would look at 50-60 houses (but made no offers - when agents would try to qualify me I just said "I have a small inheritance and will not need financing) - I kept a journal of the price per square foot,  comparing properties, and all comments made by sellers and agents (this helped me to find the seller dominate selling motive),  that was helpful - but I soon discovered that I was just looking for real estate in the conventional way  - I needed to do something else - so I started to look for owners of real estate who had problems (I applied Power Prospecting formulas) and at the same time studying creative real estate techniques from the old masters in the industry - became a member of the Washington Real Estate Exchange, hosted a real estate investor club and started to give mini creative financing seminars  while networking with those I wanted to emulate. 

I'm an engineer in the oil and gas industry, I moved to Louisiana 5 years ago for work (4 years in the Lafayette area with 1 in New Orleans in the middle).I discovered BP a couple months ago while offshore on a work project.

Generally 1% of the purchase price or a minimum is industry standard. 

If the city could make its residents happy and be more business friendly the area could explode in growth in industrial and real estate markets.  

I think there's some IRS guidelines regarding how many hours you've worked in the industry and what other professions you have, but don't quote me.

Personally, I've never paid for cable in my life nor have my parents, so I'm struggling with that *A LOT* but for other stuff, I've been in a hospitality-type industry for a long time, and I know I can knock that one out of the park (I'm actually quite excited about that aspect of it because I love my area and get excited about it, so I'm excited to share that with others and make them feel at home when they are away).