Mentoring courses and property networking

Mentoring courses and property networking

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10:50 AM, 26th July 2012, About 12 years ago 17

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Mentoring courses and property networking – have I been a Plonker Rodney?

Property Networking and Mentoring Courses

What a plonka!

Are landlord mentoring courses value for money and are many of the property networking meetings we get invited to simply a sales pitch?

When I started investing in property, back in the late 1990’s, there was no such thing as buying below market value (BMV) because the housing market was absolutely booming. Even if you were prepared to pay the FULL asking price for a property – the investor was at risk of being gazumped by a more enthusiastic investor or a first time buyer (anyone remember them?) who would pay OVER the asking price to secure their dream investment/home.

Investors, back in those days, didn’t particularly worry too much about monthly rental income from property because annual capital growth was rampant and in 2002, alone, house prices in my town rose by over 23%. Capital growth of over 9% was the norm – even in the less rampant years.

Instead, we were advised to take a longer term view on a property investment (10years+) and to ensure that the BTL mortgage was covered by 125% of rent so that the overall investment “washed its face” (after costs and voids ). By investing in this way – the long term capital growth would be created at the tenants expense. Interestingly, most banks still use the 125% of rent criteria today when deciding to lend or not.

How times and property investment strategies have changed!

Capital growth is no longer king – I can’t remember the last year that any of my existing investment properties rose in value – and the latest investment strategy seems to be “how to generate passive monthly income from property” so that we can all give up work early.
Have you noticed the number of property investor clubs and property networking events that have suddenly appeared from nowhere? Isn’t it strange how these clubs are facilitated by people claiming to be property investment gurus and how attendees are berated into buying expensive mentoring courses from them (costing thousands of pounds) so that they can learn the secret of becoming a passive property millionaire RODNEY!

I went to a couple of property networking meetings last week and 60% of the presentation material delivered was on why I needed mentoring from their founders! And they charged me £20 to attend each meeting as well!

I am firmly of the belief that if you can’t do it then – you teach it. If these mentors were such successful property investors capable of making millions of pounds passively (RODNEY) then why would they want to share their secret with me and why would they want to spend their evenings non-passively trying to get me to sign up to their expensive mentoring programmes?

Then it occurred to me. Could it be that these gurus have run out of deposit money (for their next property investment) and were they trying to sell me their mentoring courses to fund their next deposit? What do you think? Do these expensive mentoring courses deliver value for money?

Of the many attendees that I met who have attended these type of courses, the consensus was “We didn’t learn anything that we didn’t really already know – but it gave us the focus, confidence and support to invest”.

Is gaining focus and confidence etc. worth thousands of pounds though? Ironically, shouldn’t membership of a property network give its members the focus, confidence and support to invest? Isn’t that the purpose of any network is?

It would seem that many property networks have been created to promote expensive mentoring packages and not, unfortunately, to support their members. I thought I might actually learn something (about investing in property) by attending my local property club – but I obviously need more mentoring – and I feel a right PLONKER now RODNEY.

What’s your experience of mentoring and Property Clubs? Are they good, bad or indifferent? Do they provide inexperienced property investors with valuable information? Have they helped you?

I would love to hear your comments.


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Richard Greenland Richard

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21:46 PM, 29th July 2012, About 12 years ago

Hi Mark, good blog!

I agree there are plenty of rubbish courses out there by people who have a lot less property knowledge than they have sales-knowledge, and a lot of high-pressure selling to people who can't afford expensive courses and will never be able to use the material anyway. Like you it makes me sick. But...

I'm in the unusual position of having 'won' a competition for a place on Glenn Armstrong's year-long program as one of the 2 people most anti-paying-for-a-property-course, over on Owais Naveed's BMV group on Facebook. I don't know who entered me but it was probably that ***** Parkin. I REALLY didn't want to go. When it looked as if I might to win I even asked for my name to be withdrawn. But I got invited anyway grrr...

On the journey to MK I kept feeling like turning back. Reasons why - I've had bad experiences with commercial property meets/ upsell/ hype and it's so not my scene, the worst being an Inside Track 'free seminar' where there was a scrummage to get to the free videos 'worth £1,000 retail' LOL! and an older couple fighting over the cheque book. I was disgusted. I've also been to a couple of upsell events, one in Bristol and one in Berks. I left the bristol event as soon as they got to the *You have to buy this course or you will be letting yourself down and jeopardising your children's future* pitch - I hate it. So I've always been very skeptical of 'gurus' and thought this would be more of the same BS. But you know what? It was very good 😮 😮 😮

You never thought you'd hear me saying that, did you! There was no hype, no thumping the air, no upsell, just a lot of good info and some really nice folks, some of whom have already done well. I also picked up a few things that I *didn't know that I didn't know*.

Sure, Glenn is there because he gets well paid, but he also seems to genuinely enjoy it. People who enjoy what they do are usually good at it.

Then a bunch of us went for drinks in the hotel afterwards, then a Chinese meal and then back at Glenn's gaff for more drinks and a somewhat chaotic sleepover which was way beyond the call of duty for someone just out to make a buck. It was fun!

So, would it be worth the £3K price normally charged? TBH I have no idea after just one day. But I'll be back in a year - 18 months or so to tell you!

BTW Glenn hasn't asked me to write this - in fact he purposely told me NOT to write anything as he didn't want me getting flak for it. I'm used to getting flak on the internet so I don't give a monkeys. Just trying to keep an open mind 🙂

BW, Rich

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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22:07 PM, 30th July 2012, About 12 years ago

Hi Richard

I came across this website today >>> http://www.glennarmstrongcreditors.co.uk/

Are you able to shed any light on this?

Regards

Mark

Richard Greenland Richard

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22:22 PM, 1st August 2012, About 12 years ago

Mark I've only just seen this as I didn't get an email notification for some reason? Glenn tells me that he is taking legal proceedings in the sum of £250K against a property forum for allowing anonymous posters to publicise defamatory material including links to this site. Admittedly I don't know the other side of the story if there is one. I note that the site says it's going live at the end of May. We are now in August. I can look into the hosting of the site if you like, whether it's a UK host or anonymous and overseas.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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22:59 PM, 1st August 2012, About 12 years ago

Hi Rich

Please call me when you can. I tried to call you yesterday but you were not available. I have a lot more information but posting it here would be in breach of my own rules.

Richard Greenland Richard

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9:48 AM, 2nd August 2012, About 12 years ago

OK Mark will do. As stated here are the results:

glennarmstrongcreditors.co.uk

Registrant:
john wetherby

Registrant's address:
29 Harley Street
29 Harley Street
london
W1G 9QR
United Kingdom
29 Harley Street are virtual serviced offices so there is no way of knowing if John Wetherby is an alias or a real name. I remember the name though, he used to post a lot on the forum in question and was very critical of a number of people. I have been told that Glenn's litigation involves his name and at least one other name I can think of. TBH it's not really my issue and I don't know that much.

Richard Greenland Richard

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10:34 AM, 2nd August 2012, About 12 years ago

On the wider issue it is a reminder yet again that you should NEVER pay out large sums up-front for deals or similar services. A holding fee of a few hundred pounds per deal is acceptable, the balance to be paid upon completion. And ALWAYS do thorough due diligence on anyone you are going into business with.

Richard Greenland Richard

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18:30 PM, 2nd August 2012, About 12 years ago

Hi
Mark, good blog!

I
agree there are plenty of rubbish courses out there by people who have a lot
less property knowledge than they have sales-knowledge, and a lot of
high-pressure selling to people who can't afford expensive courses and will
never be able to use the material anyway. Like you it makes me sick.
But...

I'm
in the unusual position of having 'won' a competition for a place on Glenn
Armstrong's year-long program as one of the 2 people most
anti-paying-for-a-property-course, over on Owais Naveed's BMV group on
Facebook. I don't know who entered me but it was probably that ***** Parkin. I
REALLY didn't want to go. When it looked as if I might to win I even asked for
my name to be withdrawn. But I got invited anyway grrr...

On
the journey to MK I kept feeling like turning back. Reasons why - I've had
bad experiences with commercial property meets/ upsell/ hype and it's so not my
scene, the worst being an Inside Track 'free seminar' where there was a
scrummage to get to the free videos 'worth £1,000 retail' LOL! and an older
couple fighting over the cheque book. I was disgusted. I've also been to a
couple of upsell events, one in Bristol and one in Berks. I left the bristol
event as soon as they got to the *You have to buy this course or you will be
letting yourself down and jeopardising your children's future* pitch - I hate
it. So I've always been very skeptical of 'gurus' and thought this would be
more of the same BS. But you know what? It was very good 😮 😮 😮

You
never thought you'd hear me saying that, did you! There was no hype, no
thumping the air, no upsell, just a lot of good info and some really nice
folks, some of whom have already done well. I also picked up a few things that
I *didn't know that I didn't know*.

Sure,
Glenn is there because he gets well paid, but he also seems to genuinely enjoy
it. People who enjoy what they do are usually good at it.

Then
a bunch of us went for drinks in the hotel afterwards, then a Chinese meal and
then back at Glenn's gaff for more drinks and a somewhat chaotic sleepover
which was way beyond the call of duty for someone just out to make a buck. It
was fun!

So,
would it be worth the £3K price normally charged? TBH I have no idea after just
one day. But I'll be back in a year - 18 months or so to tell you!

BTW
Glenn hasn't asked me to write this - in fact he was concerned that that I’d
get flak from people who are anti-courses so told me not to write anything if I
didn’t want to. But I’d rather tell it how it is and Glenn says he’s not
concerned if I’m not concerned. Just trying to keep an open mind 🙂

BW, Rich

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