Barron's Real Estate Handbook
2008; Springer Science+Business Media; Volume: 16; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1573-8809
Autores Tópico(s)Housing Market and Economics
ResumoBarron's Real Estate Handbook, Jack P. Friedman, Jack C. Harris, and Barry A. Diskin, Sixth Edition, Barrons, 764 pages, 2005. Reviewed by: Stephen E. Roulac, Roulac Global Places LLC and University of Ulster If you stay up past your bedtime on a school night-even later than when all the first-run television shows air and the talk show hosts run out of steam-or on a Saturday morning, do some channel surfing away from the cartoons, chances are you will come across a real estate guru pitching his virtually-nothing-down, get-rich-quick real estate system. Listening to these real estate pitches, you might be a more than a bit skeptical. If you listen carefully, you will hear statements made with confident certitude that you, as a professional property analyst, would only make with numerous qualifying assumptions, and disclosures of potential contingencies. But before you switch the channel in disgust, scoffing at the absurdity of the promise, dubious at the impossibility of the too-easy path to riches that is being laid out before you, somehow you are lulled to a pause. The next thing you know, an earnest, sincere, born-again type is proclaiming how he was down, he was out, he was discouraged, his life was at a dead end, there was virtually no hope. But then he, perhaps just like you and others in the audience, in search of the key to the American Dream, decided to act. He bought the system. And that one decision made all the difference. As you are digesting this message, a couple tells their story. Although they use a different style, different words, basically it is the same message. They too, have dramatically improved their life by following the guru's path to riches. They confide that the guru's system could make all the difference for you, too. All you have to do is call the 800 number and get a package of information resources worth thousands of dollars, for just a small pittance. Maybe what you are being pitched to do is to sign up for a free workshop, where the secrets will be revealed. Even though the free lunch was officially repealed sometime ago, these real estate promoters seem to have gotten a Monopoly game equivalent of Pass Go-Stay Out of Jail card. If you do end up calling the 800 number, odds are you will be handed off to a honeytoned salesperson, a master of the upsell. Before you know it, what was a $19.99 basic get started in real estate kit is a $199.99 premium package. But wait ... don't hang up ... there is more ... something really special ... you just have to hear it! It just so happens that coming to your area is a special training session. For only $299.99, you can attend this training session. If you balk, you may be told that well, they will make a special exception for you. You'll get a ticket at a very discounted rate. Once you get to the special training session, you will be pitched and pitched and pitched-and then pitched some more. Odds are, a substantial part of the unused credit capacity on your credit card will be depleted by time the weekend is over, as you snap up irresistible offers that the real estate pitchmen dazzle before you. At least one of the pitches will be to sign up for a several thousand dollar training program providing you personal wealth building coaching and exposing you to truly extraordinary techniques that convert hustle into untold riches. Not interested, you say. What is wrong with you? Look at all these people in the audience who have done so well! Certainly, you are at least as smart as they are! Surely you don't want them to get ahead of you, do you? I mean, after all, if they are in on it, why shouldn't you get your share of the American Dream? If you follow this through to its conclusion, you will find that all the money that you might have spent for a downpayment to buy a property goes to pay for the secrets of how to buy the property with nothing down. If you did not go to these real estate trainings, but rather just took the money that you might have spent and applied it as a downpayment, you could buy the property with much lower leverage than the real estate gurus advocate. …
Referência(s)