Can You Believe All You Hear About Real Estate Investing Seminars?

So many people have had the experience of attending one or more real estate investing seminars. The information you can gain can be very useful, but you have to make sure you go to a good one:

You know, the kind of real estate investing seminars you see advertised on late night television. The ones that promise to make you a millionaire within a matter of months.

The only catch is that you first must pay thousands of dollars to attend the seminar and only then will the salesperson tell you the secrets of becoming rich from investing in real estate.

All too many times have people fallen prey to these real estate investing seminars. The speaker ropes in victims with promises of riches and they ended up leaving with as much knowledge about real estate investing as they came in with.

These kinds of real estate investing seminars capitalize on the fact that so many people are looking for a way to get rich. The advertisements paint the picture that real estate investing is some easy task that will allow you to become an overnight success. Thousands of people attending these real estate investing seminars with high hopes of finding out some kind of real estate investing strategy they can use to become rich. For the vast majority of attendees, these riches never come to fruition.

If you have heard the horror stories from attendees of real estate investing seminars, you might be wondering if you can ever trust another seminar advertisement. It seems that most advertisements for real estate investing seminars are worded with the same hope-filled, roundabout kind of language. Believe it or not, there are some real estate investing seminars that do more than rope you in for your money then turn you away a few days later with no new information. There are ways to recognize these deceitful real estate investing seminars from those that are authentic.

When you hear about one of these kinds of real estate investing seminars, do some research on it before making a decision to attend. The internet is full of feedback from people who have previously attended real estate seminars. Using an internet search engine, you can quickly search for webpages that mention the seminar you are interested in. Since there is likely to be both good and bad feedback on the seminar, you should read a few of the sites to get a good idea of what will be taught in the seminar.

The wording of the advertisement of real estate investing seminars is another clue of how much of a help the seminar will actually be. Be weary of real estate investing seminars that promise to make you an overnight success, that tell you there is little work required, or that it only takes a few hours a week. None of these is true of real estate investing and any seminar that says differently should not be trusted.

Your own judgment will likely be a good indicator of whether a real estate investing seminar is genuine or not. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

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Real Estate Investing Scare

Just recently, I was consulting a former Real Estate Investor that was in a serious situation that would scare anyone. This investor has twenty-eight properties that he’s personally purchased using bank financing over the last 4 years.

Here’s the typical deal this investor would purchase: The house would have an appraised value of $50,000 and he was able to purchase the property for $30,000.

The bank would then loan him 80% of appraisal regardless what he paid for the property allowing him to cash money out at closing when buying.

OK, follow me so far? So, in this example, he’d pocket $10,000 when he bought the property.

So, you’re thinking - that’s not scary.

Not yet anyway…

Back to the story, he calls to see if I can help by buying the properties from him. I told him I would gladly take a look to see if there was something I could do, but I assured him I couldn’t make any promises.

After, I talk with him a little more, I discover he’s 3 months behind on payments on ALL 28 properties. With all 28 properties, one would need to come up with close to $20K just to reinstate these loans.

But, that’s not the scary part. We still have to see if there’s any equity. And unfortunately, there’s not, therefore I tell him I can’t do anything for him. He’s gonna see 28 houses go to the foreclosure block. Not only will the bank foreclose, they’ll drag his name through the paper causing humiliation, disgrace with his family and his church. The bank doesn’t just foreclose, then go away. They’re gonna stay after him till they get paid. If the bank takes a loss on these properties, which they will, the bank will pursue the following options:

1. Deficiency Judgment:

This will attach to anything this homeowner owns (real estate, cars, boats, motorcycles, etc.) till the debt is paid. Judgments are usually good for a set amount of time. In Alabama, the company has 10 years they can pursue the homeowner to get paid on the judgment. Plus, you should be aware that these judgments then can be renewed after they’ve lapsed.

It’s pretty terrifying to say the least to have some attorney harassing you to collect on a debt.

2. Garnish Wages

After a judgment has been attained, the creditor can and will garnish any wages from the borrower’s pay.

3. Forgive The Debt

Maybe, you think the borrower would love for the bank to just forgive the debt. Even though they forgive the debt, they don’t forget. Because at the end of year they’ll send the borrower a 1099 for unearned income from the loss of the sale of the property they’d loan money on.

Finally, the obvious factor of having a foreclosure is the fact it shows on your credit rating, thus ruining your credit.

Why did I just tell you this information about this particular owner?

I want you to be able to make sellers aware that are in similar situations of exactly what they can expect. See, most investors expect a homeowner to make some logical decision during a totally emotional time like a foreclosure proceeding. Most owners react out of fear, thus making the wrong choice, which is doing nothing but watching the sheriff show up to finalize the eviction after the house has been foreclosed.