Skip to main content

Real Estate Investing - Books,TV Infomercials, and Seminars

Real estate investing has become popularized today because of real estate investing TV infomercials and traveling seminar circuits. But real estate investing has not always been so popular.

In the 1960s, William Nickerson wrote, "How I Turned $1000 into Three Million in Real Estate" and "How to Make a Fortune Today Starting from Scratch." It was one of the first real estate investing books to get national attention.

A little later, Al Lowry authored "How You Can Become Financially Independent by Investing in Real Estate." Al Lowry might be called "the father of the modern-day real estate seminars," because he was the first to hold seminars as a result of his book sales.

But it was Mark Haroldsen who carried the real estate investing book/seminar thrust to the next level. Haroldsen wrote, "How to Wake Up the Financial Genius Inside You." If you were tuned in to real estate investing at that time, you remember the newspaper and magazine advertising showing a picture of suave and bald-headed Mark leaning against the front hood of his Mercedes.

The picture appeared everywhere in full page ads of major publications. And as Mark began selling his books, he began holding real estate investing seminars. I have had lunch with Mark and Al Lowry as they swapped stories of the advertising blitzes that vaulted them into national prominence for their real estate investing prowess. Mark later wrote "The Courage To Be Rich" and "Tax Free."

But it was Robert Allen who capitalized on the previous groundwork by Lowry and Haroldsen. Robert Allen was reportedly paid $1 million advance royalties for his best-selling book, "Nothing Down," a compilation of 50 techniques for buying property with no money.

Robert had learned these techniques from several years experience with a commercial real estate firm. He later wrote "Creating Wealth" and "Getting Started in Real Estate Investing." The Robert Allen Real Estate Investing Seminars became a phenomenal marketing bonanza. Conventions were held in the major cities across the country, like Orlando, LA, Dallas, Chicago and Atlanta.

The authors of various real estate investing techniques spoke at these seminars, but their spiel focused on selling packages of real estate investing materials that they offered for sale. Millions of dollars of real estate investing materials were sold at these 3 day conventions.

The convention frenzy ushered in what has since become known as "The Nothing Down Real Estate Movement" of the early to mid-1980s.

I keep all of these books in my personal library, and you can probably still find them in your public library and book stores. There's a lot of great information in these books that can make you very knowledgeable, even though some of the ideas are out-dated.

We are now presented a variety of ways for making money in real estate investing in TV infomercials, books and seminars. Which is best? Who can say? Real estate investing is learned through trial and error. Real estate investing skills and techniques are acquired by practice.

I don't think anyone can dogmatically recommend a technique best for another person. Every real estate investor has unique needs and is in a unique situation. Objectives of real estate investing differs.

However, if you are limited with real estate investing educational dollars and need to generate quick return on investment, I think fixing up cheap houses is an ideal beginning point. Real estate investing in makeover properties generates quick, profitable dollars with low risk.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Real Estate Fraud

An article in Forbes talked about a report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation this week stating that real estate fraud cases were on the rise. They said reports of suspicious mortgage filings increased 36% during fiscal 2008 compared with 46,700 filings the year before, and that 2/3rds of all pending FBI mortgage fraud investigations last year involved more than $1 million at a clip, putting a rough estimate of the total at $1 billion. It's easy to understand why people would try to exploit a bad economy to help themselves, since that's what criminals do, but it's scary to see just how pervasive it is. Just this week, there were four instances in four different states confirming what the FBI stated. In North Carolina, banking regulators fined mortgage lender North American Real Estate Services Inc. $320,000 and revoked its state operating license after ruling the firm used shell companies and fictitious names to avoid state regulation. They also ordered the com...

dream home

Your credit score will give information to future lenders about your creditworthiness. This tells them how good you have been in maintaining your records, such as paying bills on time, no defaults, how you manage your credit cards and other debts. Is their any negative remarks against your name etc.In case you find a suspicious activity against your name on credit report, report immediately in writing to all three major credit score companies. This report also can be used to fix any wrong address or name in credit report. Bottom line this report lets you know where you stand on credit rating and how good chances are of getting a loan on a decent interest rate. The higher credit score means more attractive loan offers from lenders. Once you have checked your credit score and are satisfied with the needs of lending companies, next thing comes checking your financial situation. First thing what is your current assets vs. current debts. Are you in position to keep a large portion of salary...

Eight Tips For Launching Your Real Estate Investing Career

1. Desire 2. Goal Setting 3. Learning What To Do 4. Attending a Real Estate Investing Seminar 5. The Billings Montana Market 6. Finding a Mentor 7. Your Real Estate Team 8. Just Do IT 1. Desire Before we get in to the bolts and nails of real estate investing in I want to talk to you about desire. If you are going to be successful at anything in life including real estate investing you have to have the desire to do it. Desire is defined as longing or craving, as for something that brings satisfaction or enjoyment. Desire stresses the strength of feeling and often implies strong intention or aim. In real estate investing if you don't have a desire to learn and grow as a human being and really get satisfaction out of it, then real estate investing is going to be hard to do. When I go out and look at a property it brings me a lot of enjoyment. Every aspect brings me joy from talking to home owners, figuring out how I can make a deal work, to buying the house and to finding a good hom...