Forum Replies Created
- Badgers_R_Us wrote:I think that people who attend property seminars and the like are mugs. There is nothing that these seminars can tell you that a couple of books, a bit of research and some basic common sense can't tell you.
I think that if you have paid go on or are considering a property seminar then by default you should not be investing, as you clearly have no idea. If you had any idea you'd know that you should steer well clear.
What a ridiculous comment to start a topic about. This is why I hate forums – the SNR is so low.
I just got back from a seminar and found it very rewarding. Here's a few points of value:
- A wake up call / health check – is there something I can improve or is my investment getting clogged arteries?
- A lot of stuff I didn't know I didn't know, and was too complacent to go looking.
- Other people's questions, comments and experience. Much more valuable than forums like this where people make personal attacks on each other.
Books and online newspaper sites are great, but you can't get questions clarified in an instant, and you've got to know what to filter. Seminars give you a quick overview of topics so you know what to delve into further and usually give you a list of resources of where to go looking. It's like having an expert gloss over the chapters and subheadings of a book with you so you know which pages to turn to.
Perhaps you meant to say that anyone who goes to a seminar and invests in their offerings without due diligence should not be surprised if it turns out to be a lemon. That I can agree with.
My first post – I just had to register to reply to this thread.
I've just finished the (now 3 day) AREM course with Empowernet in Melbourne 5-8 Jul 08. The 4th day was a field trip around 3 developments in Melbourne. One was "Northern Greens" in Pascoe Vale, then "Maya", part of Henry Kaye's Wyndham Waters, and nearby "Ecoville", most likely another Henry Kaye project.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=107163132983752553914.0004519bf1dbff7f4e6ba
Steven Molnar was the speaker and yes, he's an energetic speaker who knows how to engage an audience – hell, he admits it: http://www.urbanlife.com.au/index.php?page=view_profile&id=803
But if anyone signed anything after 3 days of Steve repeatedly telling them to
- do 3-4 months of due diligence
- not sign anything for which you cannot afford to service the loan
- take baby steps
- seek professional advice from your solicitor and accountant
- negotiate your own deal – as the best money is made on the way into the deal while there is still leverage,
they'd have to either have rocks in their head or be extremely well prepared.
I came to the event somewhat skeptical and expecting to be marketed to on the field trip, but came away with a lot more knowledge and awareness than I expected. Sure, and as expected, the field trip was a sales pitch, but I walked out with a very professional looking example of what a development should provide to prospective purchasers and how to market it. My experience was exactly the opposite of the first poster's: totally positive and very professional. I would urge anyone smart enough to read the fine print on a contract to attend.
From the content, I derived about 20 action items to perform before buying anything. Just 3 of them should help me realise around $10k per year in better use of funds to improve my cash flow. I was attending on a free ticket (buy 1, get 1 free) but even if I had paid the $5k or so to do the seminar, I should still have made it back by Christmas. The money I will save would have gone to the banks and the tax office due to my complacency and I suspect there are many other families who find life getting in the way and become complacent with their investments, only to find that what started out as a good thing has slowly and silently lost its competitive edge – but they may not get the opportunity of a free ticket to see what else is possible.
As for PrudentJuris' post above, I can't see any similarity to this event at all. There was no mention of investing $150k in some bizarre ticket trading scheme. I wonder if it may have been created by a jilted lover with a bad taste in her mouth to provide bad PR. Oooh – http://www.wyndhamcovemarina.com.au/marina/home/vision.asp – "A development by Prudentia Investments Pty Ltd" rhymes with "PrudentJuris". A single article from 9 months ago does not make a "blog" and using a forum to pimp your own products? …. What the?!?!
The only other vaguely useful post in this thread is the one by Iratus containing all the links – well, so what? Nobody forced my hand to sign anything. Maybe it was part of Empowernet's deal with Steve Molnar that if he agreed to be the speaker they had to at least allow the opportunity to sell to Empowernet's attendees.
