Detecting a Real Estate Investment BS Artist

I've been starting to do some serious research on real estate investing (among other things), and last night, I came across a great list of how to detect a real estate investment BS artist that I thought you folks might be interested in, or know others who might find it useful. These points would apply to any other so-called investment expert or guru as well. Beware; there are many charlatans out there! http://www.johntreed.com/BSchecklist.html

And be careful whose advice you even take about what to read and who to listen to. The *real* money experts and the *truly* wealthy don't do any of the crap outlined here. Always check out anyone whose advice you are considering taking very, very thoroughly, as well as the credibility of their own sources of information. You don't want to end up doing business with someone who is practicing what some of these BS artists preach, since much of it is wrong or flat out illegal.

Legitimate experts and advisors will readily tell you exactly what their training, background, qualifications, and applicable professional credentials are, not regale you with tales about how many hours and how much money they've spent educating themselves about the process without even answering your questions about exactly what and where they've studied, for example, as one person I recently came across did. "I've spent close to $50,000 and a zillion hours educating myself about real estate investing, and am a mortgage broker", she told me - but that is *not* a legitimate answer to a question about what qualifies this person to be taking *my* money and investing it somewhere on my behalf. For one thing, it simply doesn't cost that much to get a *very* solid educational background, unless it's spent on a college degree at a moderately expensive school in something like business - but people who have such applicable degrees will say so, and readily tell you where they went to school as well, not just tell you how much money they spent in the process of educating themselves. People who are always going off to the many phenomenally expensive seminars offered by the BS "gurus" are the only ones who are likely to have put that much money into their "educations", near as I can figure.

And if these people start talking down to you as perhaps not "qualified" to invest with them because you are asking questions like this, especially after you are *finally* able to extract from them that what they do is basically take piddling little sums like $10,000 from each investor to pool to buy property in oddball places like North Dakota or small towns in the boonies of Utah, and you raise a concern about partnering with a bunch of complete strangers, especially in places you know nothing about, then it's very likely you are much, much better off. You're undoubtedly not "qualified" because they know you know enough to expose whatever holes there may be in their approach, of which there are likely to be plenty. Those who are secure and truly knowledgeable about what they are doing, are true professionals and completely above board, will welcome such questions, and answer them willingly.

And while the Cash Flow game is fun, promoting it as an investment group activity makes me really wonder even more about the person's credentials, since it has absolutely nothing to do with *real* investing. There's a time and a place for everything, and board games simply do *not* belong in any financial "advisor's" repertoire as one of their apparent tools of the trade. And don't be fooled that little stickers on their business cards proclaiming "By Referral Only" actually mean anything.

http://www.johntreed.com/Reedgururating.html#anchor520200 - This is a list by the same author as above of popular real estate "gurus" and his opinions about each. He comes down partiularly hard on Robert Kiyosaki, author of the popular book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", pointing out tons of factual errors, illegal advice, and shady discrepancies at http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html. I certainly picked up on many of them when I read the book, but not all. I just knew that something really bothered me about it.

If you read through these pages and others on Reed's website, and follow many of the links he provides, you will find some truly excellent investment advice, pointers to more, including some of the most respected financial advisors in the country today, and further explanations for my suggestions above. This guy is a smart cookie. The more I read, the more I like him. Other good places to start with any investment research are magazines and newspapers like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, and books like _A Random Walk Down Wall Street_ and Peter Lynch's classic _One Up on Wall Street_ . I'm not yet convinced I know the best real estate-oriented sources yet, but I'm working on finding out. Reed mentions some of the better-known names in both the stock market investment and real estate investing worlds, and you'll pick up others from these sources as well

Wendy