Property Gurus Do Not Help Other Property Investors Out of Kindness

LettingFocus observed that property gurus usually do not help other property investors out of the kindness of their hearts.

It never ceases to amaze us at LettingFocus that some would-be property investors, instead of getting a good book on property development/investment/letting and then speaking to independent experts, choose instead to go on expensive education courses costing tens of thousands of pounds at which they are “hard sold” even more expensive courses where they learn how to supposedly make lots of money by buying from “distressed” and indebted owners in some unemployment black spot somewhere.

Property Education

Here are some things to bear in mind.

First, The property education company will make money right down the line – lots of money on the courses themselves, then on the advisors they bring in, then on any mortgages sold and finally on sourcing the “great deals.”

The fact is that the people fronting and running the courses are marketing people not property people. If they were so good at property, then you should ask them why do they waste time running courses when they ought to be out there “doing property” for their own benefit. (See also point three).

Second, yes, the yields on the properties the property education company will find you may look good and the properties only cost say, £80K each, but so what.

The fact is that you are almost certainly buying into an area that will probably always suffer from severe economic problems. This means the properties you buy will have little or no prospect of any capital or rental income growth, they will have lots of empty (void) periods and it is much more likely that your tenants will come with alcohol, drug and/ or mental health problems, as these things tend to go along with depressed areas. The risk of non payment of rent will therefore be higher. Most of the tenants will be on benefits (often an additional hassle.)

And if anything goes wrong with the property and say you need a new roof or boiler, the income profits are so low (if they exist at all) that any profit you did make will be easily wiped out.

Third, consider the gurus touting the courses and their acolytes that help them run them?

Try asking them how, if they are so successful with property, they also find the time to run whole weekend long or week long courses.

The fact is, if you have a successful property business, as I do, whilst I certainly do not work a nine to five any more, I also am not so much on “easy street” that I could spend a whole week running a property course. (We do about two one-to-one half days consultancies a month with landlords as that is all we have time for).

Property Gurus Response

Sometimes I have heard the gurus reply that now they are successful, they prefer to spend their free time “helping other people” to become successful entrepreneurs, just like they are.

Such a response is surely laughable.

I like being a property guy. I like what I do and I like running my own business and becoming wealthy through property. I especially like providing good quality accommodation for tenants and meeting their needs. But, what I do it is not exactly comparable with saving the planet or solving world hunger.

At such time as I finish being a property investor and complete my two year sojourn around the world – and have ticked off some items on my “bucket list”, I will certainly not be spending my days advising would-be property people.

There are far more deserving causes that I can think of – and which I will devote my time towards.

And any property entrepreneur that says they would prefer to spend their weekends running property education courses rather than either sitting on their yacht (or enjoying themselves in some other way) or delivering medical aid to refugees (or in some other way trying to better the world) is surely talking poppycock.

If that were true, they would surely need their heads examining.

The truth about why the gurus do run property education courses is, of course, a lot more obvious.

Property Courses

And the truth is that they are making more money from flogging expensive property courses and property deals to the gullible than they have ever made from investing in property themselves.

Indeed, I doubt whether some have ever invested in property at all. In fact, I had it on good authority that one “property guru” who shall of course, remain nameless had never even bought a single property for investment or letting. His skill was marketing a dream of making fast money to the gullible – and property was simply the vehicle he used to do it with.

At LettingFocus we know that no would-be investor should be spending thousands on property education courses. For private landlords and other property buyers/ investors, we run low cost seminars (just two a year) and short one to one sessions (limited space) in which we will give you genuine independent advice to show you how you can be successful in residential property investment whilst not taking excessive risks and whilst still treating people fairly. Follow the links below for more.