I’ve been devouring everything I can about real estate investing (including their site) but was also very turned off by the infomercial-ness of their site. That instantly made me think there was another angle to what they were selling (even if there isn’t).

That’s how I perceived their site, even if the content has value. Kudos for actually posting your actual opinion of the site, even if involved hurting a few feelings.

I’ll still keep both your sites bookmarked for now

1. My understanding of a goal is defined as “The purpose toward which an endeavor is directed; an objective.” The two posts I link to articulate very well (in my humble opinion) my long term and short term goals. I’m not sure what a “goal setting plan” or a “real goal setting strategy” are. Could you please direct me to their description and the rules for goals (such as, apparently, not including contingencies) in the lessons? I missed that (vital) portion, and haven’t been able to find it when I looked again.

2. “almost laughable” Well, I’m glad I almost got a laugh out of you! Laughing (or almost laughing) at the other person certainly is a near perfect way of proving your position (far better than facts or arguments). In spite of your derision, with your permission, I’ll take a shot at addressing your points.

“All we have ever discussed in our 3 years and running newsletters, on our blog, and even throughout our “sales pitch” webpage is the many many challenges and difficulties of real estate investing. But, we also say that you can mitigate many of these risks with proper education and working with the right team.”

Julie agreed with me that you had downplayed risk (I wouldn’t suggest laughing at her though – wives don’t tend to take that well). With Julie’s permission, I’m happy to post the section of our correspondences where she admits this.

Beyond YOUR CO-AUTHOR, in your ad copy (http://www.realestatemillionairecourse.com/Real-Estate-Millionaire-12-Month-Program.html) you promise:

“Instead of going through the trial and error process yourself – learn from our own experiences! (Whatever mistakes you’re afraid of making, we’ve probably made them already – so we can help you avoid them.)”

“The 5 ways to protect yourself from a bad property manager – follow our hard-won lessons, and you’ll never make the gigantic mistakes we did!”

From the lessons themselves, you write:

“You can, and we believe you WILL, create massive amounts of wealth through real estate investing. Set your goals, find properties that meet those goals with plenty of good research and then hold onto them for at least five years…preferably longer. It works…”

“you’ll never make the gigantic mistakes we did!” has a very different connotation than “you can mitigate many of these risks” as I’m sure you’ll agree (all laughing aside).

I’ve read at least some of your posts about one property manager you had problems with, and it definitely sounds like an ugly situation. Problems with PM aren’t rare (at all!), so you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it. Julie tells me that you continue to use PMs extensively, so I can guarantee that you’ll have problems again in the future (I’d put money on it). It’s unavoidable (like problems with tenants) given enough units and enough time.

I didn’t say anything about financial planners and couldn’t follow the point you were making there (sorry!)

“Please be careful next time in the strength of your words.” HEY! I thought we weren’t going to pick the strength of each other’s words!?!? I stand by the content and strength of my words.

3. “I think it’s far to early in your review of our course to start comparing it to other real estate books out there and whether you will learn more from other courses and other ways (talking to mentors, reading books, and digging into local laws) than taking ours”

Just to be clear, I didn’t make any statement about where anyone will “learn more“. I did recommend two books above your course along along with self-education. I stand by this recommendation and am happy to explain the rationale. Part of any review I do is I like to detail who the product would be worthwhile for. Some products I think would be worthwhile for EVERYONE to be exposed to, some I don’t think anyone should be exposed to, and some (like yours) appeal to a specific audience. I identified THREE groups who I thought would find your product worthwhile. I recommended your book above “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” as I didn’t think RDPD was worthwhile at all, and I think there are some interesting, worthwhile ideas in your course (so without reading all 52 lessons I know you have SOMETHING of value, and I can recommend you over something I feel has NOTHING of value). I felt that Eldred’s book and Retire Rich had SMALL issues, which given that I think your product already has a BIG issue (namely, downplaying risk as discussed above), I can recommend their products above yours as they are providing basic real estate information without any DANGEROUS ideas. If the rest of your work is a perfect, wonderful introduction to real estate investing (with innovative and unique strategy clearly explained), it will still have the fundamental issue that you downplay risk (for students who aren’t sophisticated enough to recognize this and take action to protect themselves). I felt that the books I said were comparable to your course were similar: some worthwhile information, but with a couple of dangerous ideas that could get rookies into trouble if they believe them.

Perhaps in a latter review I’ll be happy to recommend your course to intermediate investors (and warn them to be careful about your suggestions about risk but to pay close attention to your treatment of XYZ). I hope this is the case!

I’m a big believer in self-education, as the person will hopefully keep digging until they’ve discovered the major pitfalls in front of them. For the same reason as recommending the books, I think this is worthwhile to (hopefully) get another perspective if a student gets a dangerous, bad idea in their head (such as underestimating the risks involved in real estate investing).

I mentioned three times in the review that the personal contact with you and Dave seems to be the biggest strength of the course (and Mike and I said the same thing in our comments). Given that the positives you point out are all examples of this personal contact as well, it seems you also agree. I didn’t say a single negative thing about it (I don’t know anything about it, and had assumed you were very helpful to students who e-mails or called – I’m glad to hear this is the case).

I stand by my suggestion (made to you by e-mail and in the review) that making this the focus of what you’re offering (and include the course material as an “add on” for people who purchase coaching / mentoring instead of the other way around) may be a good idea.

Unless I haven’t taken the message I was supposed to, I believe there are three action items in the first 5 lessons, all of which I’ve done.

1. Pick a goal.
2. Calculate your networth and cashflow.
3. Check your credit rating (I’ve done it before I started the course, both Canadian and American).

I would have e-mailed you / called if I didn’t understand something or had a specific question (I haven’t yet).

If I’ve missed some action I was supposed to take but didn’t, please let me know (and take this as feedback that any other action items should be made a little more clear .

I *want* to use your program, but I haven’t got to an action item or suggestion that I haven’t already implemented yet (which *wasn’t* a criticism in my review because I realize a) the course targets beginners and b) I’m still in the first module).

I’m sure there will be ideas that are new to me, and I’m looking forward to getting to them!

We have many happy students who really appreciate the fact that we’re taking the time to help them get over their fears. We don’t dive into the nitty gritty in module 1 because we’re laying the foundation for future modules.

We also have very happy students that really appreciate that we’re there for them. I email them back right away and address their specific concerns. Just today I worked through a mortgage situation with someone saving them hundreds each month, and I reviewed another student’s strategy and made suggestions for improvement that will likely result in them approaching real estate investing in a way that is manageable for their lifestyle. Dave spent several hours working with another student over the weekend as they placed an offer on a house with a basement suite. He saved them from a pretty big mistake and I know they would say that a $400 course for that kind of attention is a steal.

I would say that 25% of the course is content you can find in other places. But, that means 75% is new. And, once again, the big thing is that our course is a platform from which we coach beginner real estate investors. If you don’t want to interact with your teachers and you just want to read – buy a book. It would be cheaper and it will deliver on your desire to learn passively.

We aren’t looking for passive students. We want to them to take action. We want them to realize their dreams and achieve their goals. And to help them do that we’re really encouraging interactive learning – do the exercises and assignments, ask questions along the way, and actually try and do some deals. Students who do that say $47/month is dirt cheap.

The bulk of our income and our wealth comes from and will continue to come from real estate investing. I love to write, I love to teach and I love helping others and we love to share our experiences to help others but our business is investing. We didn’t buy anything in 2008 for a few reasons. The biggest reason was that we didn’t devote much time to searching for deals. We got married, Dave switched jobs, I left mine, and we started adventure racing which took up 20 hours a week in training time for 4+ months. It was a busy year. The second reason was that the few deals we did work on we didn’t go through with because we felt the risks were too high. And, that proved to be accurate. We’re really glad we didn’t do any of the deals we worked on in 2008.

You are welcome to carry on with the program, but I would challenge you to do more than just read it. Why don’t you put it into action? Don’t treat it like a book to review. Take it seriously … set yourself a real estate goal, send in your assignments, ask us questions and actually use the program to buy a property. Why would you spend your time reading our program if you don’t really want to use it?

I definitely think that offering à la carte services is totally the way they should go (and use their blog, newsletter and a modestly priced book to demonstrate their expertise).