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Below you will find overall ratings for the "major" real estate gurus with links to their individual, detailed review pages. Or visit our home page featuring all of them here.
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Carleton Sheets
COMPLETENESS: Of the 21 methods listed, the Carleton Sheets course only covers a few basic methods - mostly involving lease options or buy & rent. The materials, themselves, are scarce on details, in an attempt to induce the customer to buy into the expensive mentoring. This strategy of "up-selling" is pretty standard among the gurus, with the exception being the Bill Vaughn course, which does not have any add-ons or monthly fees.
COACH COST: Mentoring from the Sheets organization begins at $2,000. The basic program is virtually worthless without the mentoring.
COACH QUALITY: The Sheets' coaches are not professional real estate investors, so their knowledge base is very small. It is unlikely that a Sheets mentor will prove of any substantial value. Only two of the courses reviewed use real, practicing investors as coaches - Ron Legrand and Bill Vaughn
SUCCESS RATE: Unknown. There is no internal tracking or customer polls. Information from all available sources indicate some of those who buy into the mentoring achieve some degree of success, but since the strategies are limited, so is the level of success.
BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU RATING: The BBB seems to be relatively satisfied lately, since the company that markets this program (American Marketing Systems) has finally decided to take complaints more seriously. In the past, they were ignored. However - and we find this to be important - this company still receives over 300 complaints during any complaint period (generally 3 years). A good company does not allow that many complaints to make it to the BBB - instead, they willingly resolve complaints with customers before they become such an issue. This would indicate that the Sheets organization will not resolve a complaint unless forced to.
OVERALL COST: $360/year ($29.95/month). Mentoring costs a mimimum of $2000. Add-ons are extra.
COMMENTS: A fair, basic course for the beginner to learn a couple of basic methods, but the beginner may not be able to use the info without the expensive mentoring - which is of questionable value.
If you are truly interested in really learning how to make money in real estate and receive the benefit of free, unlimited coaching, all at a price you can afford, "The Simple Man's Guide to Real Estate"®, by investor Bill Vaughn is worth considering. Bill's credentials are sound, as he is the person who developed the Reverse Mortgage that has been endorsed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). And their personal coaches are actual, practicing investors who volunteer (it's free) on a not-for-profit basis to help others. It is the only low cost program found that provides free, unlimited coaching from actual investors. And their instant download (full version) allows you to start immediately. It costs nothing to check it out...