I went to their free seminar on real estate investing last night and was impressed. Has anyone joined? How was it? Do you recommend it, or something different? Any information would be appreciated. Thanks.

they oversimplify the process of real estate investing for sure.

it's probably worth the cost of membership just for the contacts and relationships you will make. They will try to push you to upgrade your membership.

I'm a basic member. Oversimplify the process, but good education nevertheless and the vendor list is gold.

Jock, do you use the services from the basic membership besides the vendor list? Have you thought about upgrading to the PIG membership?

The part of the membership that interests me the most is the software they offer. Jock, what do you think about it?

On the basic, I've been to the weekend class (worth it), a few of the case study nights (meh), and looked at a ton of the educational videos. I've also used their lease document, which is nice. It helps that I'm a CPA with a finance background to know the crap from the good stuff Del spins.

Regarding a PIG membership, I have a lot of trouble justifying the cost in my mind. I don't think you CAN justify it without going hard into multi-family, which requires a goodly amount of capital. I hope to get into multi in late 2014 or 2015 depending on funds, so I'll be able to say more then.

By software I assume you mean their evaluation tool, right? I think it is ok, but overpriced. I developed my own model that I like better and have a realtor who'll pull MLS data for me whenever I need it. The software seems to miss some data points too.

I agree with Jock.. the software I would not say is worth the money if you have a realtor that can just pull comps for you. Yes they oversimplify the process.. just remember real estate investing is just like anything else. It comes with risk! I do not think real estate investing is cut out for everyone. You need cash to get started and cash on the side at all times for the what ifs. It is also much more hands on with management vs. buying stocks. The vendors on the list at lifestyles are great and the networking is worth it.

yeah, the PIG membership is very expensive.

You're essentially paying to do an end-around and get into the MLS, which is nice because you can do the legwork yourself, but from what I've seen, it can be hit and miss. They may have updated the interface since I played with it, but it was fairly limited.

From the basic seminar I went to the other night, it seemed that they encourage managing your own property. If you're buying the home for a long term investment and letting someone build up your net worth (and not necessarily for the monthly cash flow), is it bad to pay a management company the 8% to put up with all the BS that comes with owning rentals? At least until you can retire and possibly have rentals as your full-time gig? I have one rental in Austin (I'm in DFW now) and it's very nice giving them the $100 and having them deal with everything. You all know much more about this than I, so what do you think about managing yourself versus paying someone? THanks.

I think the mgmt of their own just depends on what type of person you are. When it is out of town rental, I would lean towards a mgmt company taking care of it. I have 9 of them all in Houston where I live. So I have no problems managing them myself. I have a handyman that I call when they need repairs. I would not pay a management company $100 per property to simply collect my rent for me. Having that handyman to call is key though.

My opinion: of the REICs out there, LU is the best. Good support, tons of material, good mentorship. If you need that, LU is for you.

I'll preface this by saying that I have no doubt that you can make money with the advice you get from LU, and maybe even do so faster and more easily than you could launching into real estate on your own. I tried out the basic membership (after talking them way, way down on the rate), decided it wasn't really worth spending money on, and got out for several reasons.

One is that I have a hard time paying for information when it's so easy to find for free. I can (and have) found good vendors and good deals myself. It's not hard to build a network of good contacts, and once you have a good realtor and mortgage lender they can answer any questions you have about the process. There's no secret to real estate: you research the process, do your homework on the properties and tenants, use common sense, and ask the people you're paying anyway as many questions as you need to. I ask a lot of questions and no one has ever failed to give me a good answer. Finally, I never found myself wishing for software functionality beyond what the free MLS can do, so the Quest software was a no go as well.

The second is that the basic membership is largely just a sales program for the premium memberships. I get tired of being sold to and they strayed into hard selling territory, which made me doubt the product.

The third is that Del turned me off trying to big ball it about his money. First, don't brag. Second, if your personal wealth is the basis for why I should pay for your advice, it should require at least 2 expletives to describe properly and he wasn't in that club. I know people at least as rich as him who will answer my questions for free.



tl;dr: While LU may work for some, I am vastly more comfortable moving at my own pace and building out my own (free) network of contacts.

[This message has been edited by Ulrich (edited 12/17/2013 2:12a).]

Also, I've heard that you need to be very, very careful when screening property management companies, and that it is usually not worth it for someone with only a few properties.

Ulrich, thanks for your posts. Any books or recommendations on getting started? My first rental was just lucked upon because it was my house I bought in Austin before I moved to DFW. We just decided to keep it. I know little about the process of obtaining more rentals. I've been told about a few books, but was wondering if you had any advice as well since you seem to have gone about the process solo. Thanks.

Where are you looking to buy rentals? Just find a couple realtors that specialize working with investors. Then find a lender that works with investors. Like previous poster mentioned, there is nothing special or tricks to learn. You just ask the few people you are already paying to do their job. Find a house that fits your model. Your returns and outlook may be different then mine. Figure out how you will buy it. Loan, hard money, cash... etc.

I am a part of the Liberty Real Estate group. It's a smaller start up. Founder of Liberty was associated with LU for a while in the past.

I've heard good and bad about LU - but the good seems to outweigh the bad. It's a business, not a non-profit group or anything, so it's wise to remember that. I think the oversimplification and selling is a part of the business of what they are doing. If you can look past the selling and some of the hype, it seems like a good group to be a part of. One thing I like about Liberty is that he (David Fantin) seems like more of a "straight shooter" than Del or Steve at LU.

The networking, vendors, mentors and educational material seems worth it for someone just starting out at their basic level at LU.

Q for members:

Do they have their two day class available online for members?

I was curious what online things they have available at LU. I'll honestly probably join once my kids are a little bit older, and I can attend more events than I could right now - but if they have a decent online offering I'd probably join earlier.

[This message has been edited by Cyprian (edited 12/17/2013 12:56p).]

crock, I think springagg has good advice.

I haven't read many REI books and I'm a newbie myself so I'm not going to make any book recommendations. However, if johntreed.com rates the author well, I feel more comfortable.

The whole real estate investment community is awash with scoundrels (I'm sure there are good ones and LU appears to be one of the better ones), so I feel a lot more comfortable finding people with proven track records that I can talk to face to face, one on one, in a low pressure environment.

[This message has been edited by Ulrich (edited 12/17/2013 2:17p).]

Just bumping to get an update on some of these posts. I joined the basic level tonight. The research I did reflects what was said here several years ago. I'll report back to when I get going. Thanks.

One of my parents is a member and teaches seminars on 1031 exchanges at Lifestyles events. I've heard nothing but good things.

I'll echo that a property management company isn't worth it if you're in town. I had pretty bad experience with one in Houston that just took money and did nothing to protect my investment.

Ol Jock,

You ever get into multifamily, I guy i work with is recommending the PIG for multi family.

if you did it, was it worth it?

Bump...

Just wanted to follow up on this post. I would love to hear about everyone's experience with LU.

Thanks in advance

Great program to learn RE Investing.

Definitely recommend if you are a novice looking for side investments / cash flow.

The MF Investing gets a little more political- need to really look at who you are Investing with. They generally have a lead investor and they pull money together for the deal.

They provide a very proven common sense approach to investing and teach very effective techniques to limit your cost/exposure.

You can get into single family with them and get some good info, lists, etc but can be done on your own. Really push Multi Family and is difficult and hard to navigate on your own. You will hear about retiring early and is possible but will take significant cash. I know some who were retired already so that would not count as retired early due to program. If you want to get into MF investing then I would plan on min of $50K to invest and some require $100K to join into a complex deal as a passive member. Passive members really invest money and sit back and let a 'lead' manage the operations for everyone. Ultimately goal is to improve property and sell for profit and move on to next one and repeat. Some will also improve property, refi and take cash out to be distributed to investors and hold longer.

I'm a member of LU as PIG. I plan to either lead a deal or KP for an apartment complex , I wouldn't know what to do without Lu. And when problems arise I have mentors avail. If I get fully involved I plan to gain 10-12 % if I'm passive (no work) and if they sell I gain maybe double that. LU has large offices in San antonio, dallas, houston. Many of the members are multimillionaires and they will help you become one. There are some large financial institions that know how to work w Fannie may, sec attorneys etc. It is expensive but knowledge and experience does cost money. It might be in books but everything is in books, easy to say...

Tgir said:

---

I'm a member of LU as PIG. I plan to either lead a deal or KP for an apartment complex , I wouldn't know what to do without Lu. And when problems arise I have mentors avail. If I get fully involved I plan to gain 10-12 % if I'm passive (no work) and if they sell I gain maybe double that. LU has large offices in San antonio, dallas, houston. Many of the members are multimillionaires and they will help you become one. There are some large financial institions that know how to work w Fannie may, sec attorneys etc. It is expensive but knowledge and experience does cost money. It might be in books but everything is in books, easy to say...

---

Are you in San Antonio?

Anymore updates on this thread. I am a basic member and still pondering whether to spend the additional $7,000.

Just a bump to see if anymore experiences can be posted.

-D

https://passiveinvestor.net/

Would give this group a look as well. They are old LU guys that went out on their own. Full disclosure I have an ownership interest in the company.

That explains why they used your picture all over the site