Real Estate Investing is not a get rich quick scheme or a way to quit your job in the next 12 months. There are “real estate gurus” who sell programs labeled as real estate investing with such promises. These programs are not focused around real estate investing but actually around having full time jobs in real estate. Many of the programs focus around flipping properties, contracts and negotiating with sellers in foreclosure, etc. Then require that the investor sell the property themselves without utilizing a realtor (because there is not enough profit in the deal for them and a real estate commission). At the end of the day these ‘investors’ are making hundreds of phone calls a day and showing homes to buyers and negotiating sales. These people would be much better off just to obtain real estate licenses and become full time realtors.
Most real estate commissions are 6% and many of these flipping deals produce less average income than that. If you are going to contact sellers based on classified ads or advertising and convince them to sell you their property so you can then flip it, as a Realtor you would have convinced them to list the property with you while you find a buyer. If you were then going to find buyers through classified ads and advertising to buy the home, as a Realtor you would deliver this buyer to the seller and earn the full 6% commission. Any of these real estate programs that require you to do all this work, if you were to earn any less than 6% you are giving your services away below market value. Most programs that involve assignments of contracts, flipping and deed schemes are just creative ways to earn a real estate commission without a license. You can make more money just getting the license and using a listing agreement instead of all the fancy and sometimes devious contracts and documents prepared by these ‘gurus’. Again this is not real estate investing this is a career in real estate