Think Rich, Grow Rich - Opinions?

General Real Estate Investing
1

I attended a free seminar (aka sales pitch) entitled “Think Rich, Grow Rich”. Their angle seems to be over all wealth accumulation and asset protection using the Stock Market as well as Real Estate Investment. The end of the pitch included an (inevitable) sales pitch for their 3 day event a few weeks later. The pitch was $50 for as many people you’d like to bring, and if you show up all 3 days, they’ll give you your $50 back. So I figured what the heck, it’s hard not to get $50 of value in 3 days, even if they do have some weasel clause to keep your $50.

Just wanted to see if anyone else had attend anything else by this group (not sure of the parent company name off the top of my head), and their thoughts about them. Any pitfalls to look out for, other than the usual obvious ones? For example, before attending a similar event by the “Wealth Institute”, I read about their ploy where they get you to call your credit cards and raise your limits, to “improve your credit score”. But the next day, they turn around and hard sell you to use that new found “wealth” to invest in their courses. So I was able to avoid that pitfall. Any similar advice for these guys?

2

You will likely hear limited time offer, discount only to first 150 who sign up, after today this offer will not be available, never been offered cheaper, price will go up next week, etc. All these phrases are intended to create a sense of urgency to sign up now, to pay today, because the discounts and/or free bonuses will not be available after the seminar is over.

Just resist the temptation, however strong, because the offer is usually always available, and sometimes even cheaper from their website.

If you attend the seminar and hear something you are not sure about, come back to this site and ask a question. I am sure someone will give you the benefit of their expertise and experience for free.

3

Did they offer any helpful information during the free seminar? I usually stick to reading and buying books, but I have attended seminars, and sometimes for $50 or $100, it’s worth it. Some seminars charge thousands, and I have never attended one of these. Usually my opinion is that you can go to a bookstore and find really good information for $20, and you can sit on the internet and read REI club articles and posts for free. There is usually a part at the end of a seminar where they want to sell you CDs, books, ect. for at least $1000. Resist the beginning…consider the results.

4

I don’t know about their seminars, but I can tell you from first hand experience that Real Estate investing combined with prudent (contrarian) stock investments are the most powerful tools for wealth building anywhere.

Dave Dreman wrote 2 great books on the subject. “Contrarian Investment Strategy” and “The Next Generation.” Both are must reads in my opinion. Basically, by buying companies that fall from favor but still have good business models you can consistantly make money.

A few examples…

McDonalds, a few years ago Wall St. had them dead and buried. Did anyone think to look at the waistline of the average American? Add to that the incredible growth overseas of the brand and BOOM, 400% return in 3 years.

Merck…dead and buried from Vioxx, stock goes from $65 down to $25. Then an interesting thing happened. Congress passed a law allowing multinational companies from the U.S. to bring back their overseas profits for one year only and pay a tax rate of 5% on them. Merck immediately repatrioted $6 Billion. Guess whats funding their 50% win rate in those Vioxx lawsuits? Merck…$50+ now, and a C/D beating 5% dividend. And just try and guess where all the EXPERTS are telling people to park their money now? Yep, Big pharma, where were these guy’s when the stock was $25? But don’t worry it’s only going up from here.

Future prospects??? I hope every one of you are watching the home builders stocks. 2008 will get even uglier than 07 for these guys. Wait and watch. When Toll Bros. gets down into the single digits load up. This is not rocket science. If you have $40K or more sitting in a C/D I’d park every penny of it in that stock. 6-10 years from now the same dopes who bought homes with those teaser rates in 2005 will be right back at the table. The difference will be your $40K will be $200K by then. Think it can’t happen??? Look at a 10 year chart of Toll Bros. Single digits 10 years ago.

Nothing changes, it all repeats. I got into it because I kept seeing the same things over and over. Make a point to pay attention. By combining Real Estate with selective stock investments you can create giant piles of money with very little effort. But be forewarned, It does require GREAT patience and a long term commitment. The other benefit? I need to pull that money out because a GREAT deal comes along on a house? One keyboard click and I’m out, checks in the mail. Hard to do that with homes. I then sell that house and bingo, right back in. Very powerful stuff.

Propertymanager wrote a great book about rental property. Every person on this site can learn something from it. One of the things I read in it that I could relate to was the questions you have to ask yourself BEFORE you become a residential landlord. I’ve been there and done it, learned a lot from it, got really tired of the BS so now I just have a few commercial rentals (businesses have half the rights of a family LIVING in one of your houses) and I flip houses. I put some of those profits into a very small selection of stocks and just keep it rolling.
Very little stress, great returns. I may go 2 years without buying a single share of anything. The advantage we have as opposed to Wall St. guy’s is WE DON’T HAVE TO BE PLAYING ALL THE TIME. By waiting for the right opportunity the odds greatly increase in your favor. Like I said, watch the home builders, when this gets really ugly (it hasn’t got there yet) you’ll see it as plain as day. People will question your sanity when you tell them you bought home builders stock. At that exact time…you can go home and sleep like a baby, because in my experience (15+ years) you just got a real bargain!

5

OOOH drool… FDJake, you hit the nail on the head. I call it cyclical success.

6

Ok, so first off I got the name wrong. The company is actually called Grow Rich, Stay Rich (not Think Rich, Grow Rich).

The 3 day seminar/sales pitch ended Saturday. It’s only the 2nd 3 day seminar I’ve attended, but my business partner and I actually did sign up for a few of their courses. Here’s why.

First, yes, the 3 day seminar was all about pitching their company and trying to get you to sign up for their classes. At $5k a piece, they’re priced in line with many others I’ve seen, but one key difference was that once you sign up for a class, you can attend over and over for life. They’re held every 2-3 months all over the country, and if they’re not local, they broadcast them over the web, and you can still interact by posting questions on-line.

As I mentioned in my original post, this company teaches over all wealth building and protection strategies, not just real estate. So the stock and currency markets are a big part of their approach. One thing I really liked was a piece of proprietary software built in house called the ISI2 Robot. It’s used by incorporating it with an off the shelf program called MetaStock, and it helps analyze trades and helps spot trends. In short, it makes it much easier for novice investors to analyze trades. And it comes with the courses.

And lastly, I liked a few things about their real estate training. For example, they have partnered with the largest title company in the country, and have worked out an arrangement with them so that they’ll do title research for you prior to you making an offer on a property, so long as you’ll use their services when you list. So you can find out if a property has a clean title before you even make an offer, without having to pay $100-300 for a title search before hand. Also, they’ve got some software they’ve developed that pulls together all of the information you need to analyze a deal, all into one place. Now I know I can get all of this information myself by visiting 5 or 6 web sites on my own and compiling it together myself, but this makes that process much quicker and less tedious. And lastly, they have relationships with several banks that are used to working with RE investors, which I found very attractive, being a new investor and not having built those relationships myself yet.

So in short, what’s my opinion of this company. Well, so far, so good. Of course I’m still very skeptical until I see what their classes are like, and until I try and use some of their services. But if anyone else is wondering if you should attend one of their cheap/free 3 day seminars, I’d say go for it. It’d be worth the $50-200 they charge (they refunded the $50 we paid if we attended all 3 days), at the very least. Just be prepared for a sales pitch. But it wasn’t a very hard sell, and we could have easily left without signing up for anything. We just liked what we saw and decided to invest a bit in our futures to see if they can live up to the hype. I’ll try and update this post once I’ve attended one of the courses and let you all know what I think.

Until then, happy investing!

7

How does one separate the good advice from the bad when it comes to real estate investing? In other areas, there isn’t such a deluge of information as there is in RE. I’m new to this and any advice is appreciated.

8

If it sounds too good to be true - IT IS. There are a million people out there waiting to scam newbies out of their hard-earned cash. Promises of riches without a LOT OF HARD WORK are simply :bs

Good Luck,

Mike

9

It’d be a better title if all three verbs were combined - Think Rich, Grow Rich, Stay Rich.

10

Thanks so much for that reality check. I guess that’s what I do with most everything, but in some areas, the BS seems to be more abundant than others. :biggrin

11

Think of how many investment books you could buy with $5,000 and read over and over again. :cool

From my experience, I learn a lot more from books than seminars and you can get right down to business without all the bs and without the sales pitches for the most part. Also a lot of the books come with some basic software to get you started. Just add coffee. I’ve learned more reading investment books over the last year than the four years I spent in college getting a bachelor’s degree in finance.

I also hate the whole “this deal is only available tonight” technique.
I was recently at a seminar of a well known pre-foreclosure guru. Their first mistake was not doing their homework on how the foreclosure works in our state. Over half of the things they mentioned didn’t even apply for any of us. Most of the people who don’t know our state’s foreclosure process left worse off than when they came to the seminar.

Of course at the end of the seminar, they did a powerpoint list showing all the products available in their package. Each item had ridiculous prices and then they always say "but for you tonight, I’m going to do something special. I’m going to mark it down to only $4,000. What do you think about that? They do that a couple of times and by the time they get to the actual price which is still ridiculous, many people are remembering that imaginary $4,000 and thinking “man this really is a deal. Only 900 bucks for all these real estate forms and audio cds. All I have to do is wholesale one deal and I’ll get my money back.”

They are selling you on emotion everytime. Otherwise they wouldn’t have to use that strategy. I’m not saying that there aren’t good products available because there are but when they have to use these sales techniques, and one time offer crap, that should be a sign to be on guard. That’s actually how I screen items that I buy at seminars. If it’s a good product it should sell itself.

So when you hear “tonight only” tell them thanks but no thanks.

You’re investing in your future and just like you have to be selective in what you invest in when it comes to real estate, you have to do the same with your real estate education!