Spotting a Dodgy Guru

Take from the following articles what you will, but having read these authors [“?”] books quite recently – and having intimate knowledge of transactions both parties have been or currently are involved with, I would have to agree with most of John T. Reed’s comments – although somewhat cynical at times:

http://www.johntreed.com/DeRoos.html

http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html

Personally, I have no problem with people such as DeRoos and Kiyosaki promoting a sense of direction or generating enthusiasm, but the reality is these books contain fictional and unsubstantiated stories, experiences and methodologies which can be misleading.

What I do despise is people who have a mediocre track record/experience at best in the real world, and limited knowledge of investment/finance strategies beyond the basics, yet portray themselves as the opposite as a means selling stories – which in reality is the foundation of their supposed wealth, not real estate.

— Michael

“but the reality is these books contain fictional and unsubstantiated stories, experiences and methodologies which can be misleading.”

And unfortantly I have become independantly wealthy from them…

Rgds.
Lucifer_au

Hi Michael,
Can you elaborate on what you are alluding to ?
(the intimate knowledge on what both parties are currently or have been involved in)

I notice they all seem to have ended up in Arizona as neighbours ( Burley, Kyosaki, De roos)
coincidence or not ??

I have always thought that these guys seem to promote “7 levels of investors” or “7 steps to wealth” all of which are “secret” whereas in fact the 8 step or level is to write and promote a book, and/or conduct seminars. Thats where the easy and leveraged money is.
It taps into the psyche of the majority of ordinary ppl out there who wish or dream of wealth….

KP

What I so GET is how when you’ve realised how it all works yourself, you don’t want to be on your rich island alone, you want all your mates to be there too. it’s natural to want to share that with people. OK, not every successful investor is going to have the ‘calling’ to go public with information, and take it as big as demand will let them. But i still get it!

If I tell a friend everything I know and get them started with their wealth creation, as I have done! Loads! – – well, that’s fairly time consuming. I mean, one to one is time-consuming as a concept, not that I begrudge spending time with a friend and hooking them up!

but if…I over the months put it into a format that a lot of people can benefit from – writing it down, and structuring it a bit, such as what Castle Dreamer and I do with our ‘you know what’ mailing list (not wanting this to be just an excuse for a plug!) – then am I an info-preneur? maybe, kinda. In a different way than a seminar person, but with the same principle. If you have information and you package it, you enabling more people to get it in less time – hey, there’s the leverage.

So people get to leverage off information that we as investors – specialising in a particular area – have gained. Like nuts and bolts practical information. Whereas Kiyosaki and De Roos give you the theoretical information.

Kiyosaki writes about how he made his money from building businesses, (velcro wallets and whatnot!) losing it all, starting again, building it back up – and it was only when he ‘retired’ and had a think about ‘what next???’ in his log cabin (BTW his friends were all betting that he couldn’t just do nothing for very long!) – that he realised he was bored, and he wrote his book.

which he had to self-publish and stick on the counter of a friend’s gas station to get it off the ground!

Kiyosaki confesses all the time that he’s ‘not that smart’ and he doesn’t even fancy himself as a great writer. Nevertheless his book struck a chord. (with Oprah, which would have helped!) It’s s-i-m-p-l-i-f-i-e-d for people who may not own a calculator. But once you GET the principles the calculator can follow! And I don’t care if it’s a story or not. The one minute millionaire is a story, a made-up story. but the teaching of the principals of wealth creation are right there!

Kiyosaki also said that he always surrounds himself with people who are smarter than he is. Cue Dolf de Roos. Who Kiyosaki says is more of a property expert than he is!

And Dolf de Roos is certainly not making up stories. Some things he is doing in real life are visible for all to see.
Check out his website for the property ventures he’s doing. They are great, and he’s the first to do anything like that in his areas. his developments have a lot of style. I think he’s great.

So he may be a big time developer these days, but Dolf got started buying single family homes just like I am doing now. And that’s what he teaches. of course when you get to where he is, you don’t need the seminar. The seminars and the help are for people starting out.

cheers-
Mini

joy to the world

I agree with you Mini, there’s no way I’d manage my properties myself. What if you want to buy in a cashflow positive area that’s interstate? I agree it can be hard to find good ones, but the good ones are gold.
Plus I’d be a sucker for every hard luck story of why my tenants can’t pay the rent this week….! No thanks, let the professionals do it.

Keep smiling
Felicity

This whole issue has been discussed before…. and even John T Reed “DON’T GET IT…”

It’s about the principles / philosophy’s of investing….. Do we REALLY care about RICH DAD being real or not ??? I certainly dont…. it’s the lessons on life / wealth and investing that I care about, and they HAVE DEFINITELY helped…..

IT’s THE MESSAGE YOU DUMMY !!! not the point by point fact breakdown….. simply put many of John Reed’s comments also dont add up…..

Dolf De Roos gets a “roasting by association” because he’s linked to Kiyosaki…..

We all have different paths to follow…. Some people forget that a lot of the books, even Steve’s, are not “HOW TO” they are “WHAT I DID” along with some guiding words to help you start your own journey….

Each to his own….. we are all different….. it’s often what we take from the many books that guides us to invest & live the way we do….. Do I want to be mini-Steve ?? NO…. I want to do things my way…… Did Steve / Rick Otton / Robert Allen / Dolf De Roos / Peter Spann / Napoleon Hill / others help me…… Sure did…

I rest my case…… DOH !!!

yes, yes, and yes to all who posted after me!

I just hate how FEAR headlines have this kind of attraction for….OK I’ll say it….all the people who aren’t doing anything, who are looking for validation for doing nothing.

“look, these guys are crooks, leading people astray, it doesn’t work, they are hoaxes, I knew it, I am right to do nothing”.

cause we all know there’s a hell of a lot more of them out there (95 percent) than the doers and achievers who actually do create wealth. (5 percent.)

That guy is just leveraging off the fear of the majority. Huh! Oh, as is jenman. by the way.

hey, if I hadn’t gone down the path of finding out stuff for myself and getting off my ass and doing stuff and getting out the calculator and getting stuck into educating myself about anything and everything property-related, hours of phone calls, web research, the whole BIT, i would probably still be a chicken sitting here reading Treed or whatever the hell his name is and going nowhere.

joy to the world

Me managing properties???

It gets a bit hard when your nearest property is 2 hrs away BY PLANE!!!!

And really I don’t even know how a toilet works (you press a button and it flushes!). So I’ve got no idea how to fix one anyway…

So I will disagree with Mr T Reed. There are excellent Property managers out there – Otherwise I wouldn’t be here… I would be trying to fix a toilet…

I agree with Mini – John T Reed, works on fear.

As for the points he makes (on Dolf De Roos, I did not read the R.Kiyodsaki comments), some are valid (for a US book he probably should of called property instead of real estate, etc), but two things – 1) His primary goal I’m guessing is not to write books, its probably to invest in real estate. 2) Out of 150 page book he has managed to extract 50 sentences that he disagrees with. 50 sentences out of 150 pages (sorry it’s actually more like 160 pages…).

And many of the comments he makes are debateable, and can favour of Dolf De Roos,just as much as J.T Reed. For example, Dolf writes: Never put more than zero or very little down p. 151; Reed counters: Many successful investors always put 100% down. Well I think I’m doing okay because I’ve retired, and I have never put 100% down, I try to get away with the bare minimum (5%). I think any investor dislikes to tie up large slabs of cash, I know one investor who owns over 100 properties and she always puts down the bear minimum. Most investors want to put their cash down and get as much back as soon as it is possible, you don’t do that buy putting down 100%.

Or another debateable that could be in favour of Dolf De Roos. For example, Dolf writes: says plumbers and such will always work on your job first if you pay their bills the day you receive them. claims this is a “foolproof method” p. 120; Reed counters: In my experience, subcontractors expect to be paid when they complete the job—before they leave your property.
Well guess what, from the invoices I have received (and from a couple of friends who are tradies) every invoice with payment in 30 days. I know some don’t, but I know alot who do (I worked with a property maintenance guy when I was young (painting, demolishing stuff, etc) – and it was 30 day terms). My property maintenance guy said on a couple of occasions “do a good job on this, because we get paid as soon as we finish this one”.

You could go on and on, but whats the point… It simply wastes peoples time.
(For more check out MiniMogul’s post).
You could show similar ‘problems’ in any book (War and Peace included!).

I think what I most dislike about John T Reed, is how he puts others down to sell his own (multiple) products.

And this is how pathetic it gets with John T Reeds B.S. detector.
13. No index -Guilty

So Dolf De Roos doesn’t include an index and some how that means Dolf somehow is a B.S. artist?

Well there is a book called ‘The Millionaire Next Door’ and there is no index in that book. Well I guess T.Stanley (Ph.D) & W.Danko (PhD) must be B.S. artist too (if we go by John T Reeds “test”). The book is a statistical analysis on America’s millionaires.

As for J.T Reed being the saint he proclaims to be, I leave you with the title of one his books: ‘How to Buy Real Estate for Little or No Money Down’.
Now My B.S. detector is going off!

Rgds.
Lucifer_au

I would just like to say, as a baby [baby]investor, I would still be wondering how and what I would retire on,
if I did not have my rental management company, or read all those books (Steves, Kiyosakis)
Now I have goals and ideals, as well as a fully managed investment property that I dont have to worry about!

great forum guys and gals,
Trisha[blush2]