The Good The Bad And The Ugly:Real Estate Gurus And Scam Artists Revealed

Thinking about plunking down hundreds of dollars for a get-rich-quick plan you saw on that last infomercial? Signed up for an all-day seminar that promises to be the first stop on that road to riches? Think again. John T. Reed, real estate investor and author,  rates more than 100 purported real estate investment gurus and seminar organizations and offers a Real Estate B.S. Artist Detection Checklist. Here's a sample:

Carleton Sheets (Not Recommended) "Carleton Sheets’ books generally have directories of stuff like HUD regional offices, repeated blank forms, pages for “notes.” His books, other than the one on nothing-down, are double spaced, have large type and huge margins, skip lines between paragraphs, and have lots of blank pages and pages with just four or five words on them...Creative Tax Strategies is a slop job of a book on real estate tax law. If Sheets turned this in as part of a university course or real estate or tax law, the professor would give him an F and chew him out."

"Robert Allen (Not Recommended), author of the book Nothing Down, also says what Sheets says. When I dug up the documents on one of the deals where he actually used this 'technique,' the lender was Bank of America. Their written policy at the time, which I have a copy of, said they would make no mortgage loans where there was any secondary financing, let alone nothing-down financing. In that deal, Allen had the second that was taken back by the seller recorded one day after the closing on the sale and the first mortgage. This is called a 'silent second' and is done to reduce the chances that the first mortgage lender will find out about it. In other words, the bank making the first mortgage loan did not agree to the nothing-down second, rather they were apparently told there was none."

Comments

[Larry Wingo]

I have written many useful articles on real estate, such as the one linked here. They're all free and if you can benefit from my efforts, experience and words of wisdom, please feel free to read my web pages and reprint them in a manner that benefits others.

[Josh]

Larry Wingo is one of the rudest finance and mortgage specialists I have ever spoken with. When he can get a deal done, and that is not often, he over charges. Sometimes getting as much as ten points on mortgages and commercial transactions.

"Larry Wingo" is a CROOK!

[MasterPlan Capital LLC - Commercial Mortgage Loans]

Mr. Reed does his homework; I’ll say that for him. All his claims are backed-up by documentation. He slams some “guru’s” but he points you to the evidence he uses so you can check it out yourself. He is worth reading.

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[philippines property]

Are you sure about that.. Well, i haven't spoken to him yet in this blog.. By the way on the topic, thanks for giving such warnings for Carleton sheets and Robert allen.. Nice post..

-david