We have been interested in real estate investing for some time now. Our Mother had seen a commercial on TV about a free seminar on flipping by Armando Montelongo Seminars. She attended the seminar and was sold on the flip and grow rich workshop they were selling. She thought it would be great for us so she signed up and paid the $1500 fee.

My brother Matt and I decided to give it a shot and attended. I was optimistic.. I knew there would most likely be some time devoted to an upsell at some point. What I didn’t know is how much time would be spent on the upsell during this real estate investing “workshop”. It seemed like it was about 2% real estate investing, 30% “i’m so rich, look at me with my boat/car/house”, and 68% upsell.

Needless to say we left early, half-way into day two. My advice to them is to spend more time educating on the things people signed up to learn and less time trying to get the attendees to shell out another $25k on another, “more advanced”, course with a “guru”. Now.. It can be worthwhile to spend big money on power sessions with industry experts, but only when you are experienced enough to understand how to process and apply the valuable information you receive.

My advice to people looking to get into REI is to research sites and forums like biggerpockets.com. Join your local REIA and attend some meetings and/or events. Search out mentors that are willing to help you based on your enthusiasm to learn and not how much you are willing to pay them to teach you. A great mentor knows that a great student will reward them thousands of times over.