What buying the book How to Get Started in Real Estate Investment will NOT do for you
Tell you how to get rich in real estate. No one can tell you that because there are powerful forces, like interest rates and tax laws, that determine whether you succeed. A good guru can only tell you how to avoid many mistakes, but avoiding mistakes alone is not enough to become rich. You also need some luck.
Trigger calls from boiler rooms trying to get you to spend thousands of dollars on John T. Reed products and services like “mentoring.” For one thing, I offer no such services. There is a chapter on mentors in How to Get Started in Real Estate Investment. That chapter does not say to hire me. You cannot. I do not offer paid mentoring. It says to hire no one. Rather, it says mentors should be free and tells you how to find them. If you buy most other gurus’ products, you will be put on a list of pigeons and you will be targeted by boiler-room sales people, invariably out of Utah for some unknown reason, who try to get you to spend thousands of dollars on more guru stuff.
Tell you how wonderful it is to be rich. Indeed, it tells you the opposite—that being rich is not what it’s cracked up to be. That money has a limited power to improve your life and that overdoing pursuit of money will leave you poorer in terms of family, friends, health, and enjoyment of life. How to Get Started in Real Estate Investment tells you how to make real estate investment part of a balanced life.
Tell you that real estate is the best career for you. Real estate has many opportunities. But it’s not for everyone. The book generally assumes that you have checked real estate out and decided correctly that it is best for you. But the book leaves open the possibility that real estate may not be best for you and encourages you to keep an open mind.
Tell you to spend thousands of dollars on real-estate-invesment education. Unless you want to work for companies that only recruit at prominent colleges and MBA programs, you only need to spend a few hundred dollars to educate yourself. Even if you wanted to spend more, there are not enough good programs available to spend that much money on.
Tell you how to invest in real estate even though you have no cash or credit. If you have no cash, get some. If you have bad credit, your first step should be to repair it. People with bad credit owe money. They have no business investing in real estate. They should first pay off the people they owe. If that’s not what you want to hear, vaya con dios. I am not in the business of telling people what they want to hear. Contact a politician or a criminal guru if you want someone to tell you attractive lies.
Tell you how to take advantage of unsophisticated people. You ought to wonder when a guru tells you how to take advantage of unsophisticated people, if you are one of the unsophisticated people he is taking advantage of. Here’s a hint. You are.
Tell you how to use partners to do nothing-down deals. This book tells you to stay away from partnerships.
Assume that all real-estate investments are profitable so all you have to do is get your name on a deed to get rich. Rather, it lists the many make-profit-on-purpose strategies that are available and urges you to adopt one to four of those as your focus.
Trigger calls from boiler rooms trying to get you to spend thousands of dollars on John T. Reed products and services like “mentoring.” For one thing, I offer no such services. There is a chapter on mentors in How to Get Started in Real Estate Investment. That chapter does not say to hire me. You cannot. I do not offer paid mentoring. It says to hire no one. Rather, it says mentors should be free and tells you how to find them. If you buy most other gurus’ products, you will be put on a list of pigeons and you will be targeted by boiler-room sales people, invariably out of Utah for some unknown reason, who try to get you to spend thousands of dollars on more guru stuff.
Tell you how wonderful it is to be rich. Indeed, it tells you the opposite—that being rich is not what it’s cracked up to be. That money has a limited power to improve your life and that overdoing pursuit of money will leave you poorer in terms of family, friends, health, and enjoyment of life. How to Get Started in Real Estate Investment tells you how to make real estate investment part of a balanced life.
Tell you that real estate is the best career for you. Real estate has many opportunities. But it’s not for everyone. The book generally assumes that you have checked real estate out and decided correctly that it is best for you. But the book leaves open the possibility that real estate may not be best for you and encourages you to keep an open mind.
Tell you to spend thousands of dollars on real-estate-invesment education. Unless you want to work for companies that only recruit at prominent colleges and MBA programs, you only need to spend a few hundred dollars to educate yourself. Even if you wanted to spend more, there are not enough good programs available to spend that much money on.
Tell you how to invest in real estate even though you have no cash or credit. If you have no cash, get some. If you have bad credit, your first step should be to repair it. People with bad credit owe money. They have no business investing in real estate. They should first pay off the people they owe. If that’s not what you want to hear, vaya con dios. I am not in the business of telling people what they want to hear. Contact a politician or a criminal guru if you want someone to tell you attractive lies.
Tell you how to take advantage of unsophisticated people. You ought to wonder when a guru tells you how to take advantage of unsophisticated people, if you are one of the unsophisticated people he is taking advantage of. Here’s a hint. You are.
Tell you how to use partners to do nothing-down deals. This book tells you to stay away from partnerships.
Assume that all real-estate investments are profitable so all you have to do is get your name on a deed to get rich. Rather, it lists the many make-profit-on-purpose strategies that are available and urges you to adopt one to four of those as your focus.