A friend of mine was telling me about a local real estate investment group that has a high membership fee but offers good education and networking opportunity that can lead to a good ROI. I was just curious if anyone has had experience with real estate investment groups and whether they liked that format or not.

That is the name of group he was talking about.

don't be jealous of Del Walmsley's empire!

Jealous is definitely the emotion I get when I think of him and people like him.

This is great. Thanks for your insight.

I had a boss a handful of years ago that walked in one day and said he was retiring. He was mid 40s at the time. I had lunch with him a few times to talk about it and he said he was with lifestyles unlimited. He said in 4 years with them he was making as much as his full time job. He was a lead investor on a number of properties and started his own management company. I don't know where he found the time to work the day job and do this. I believe he sold a couple of properties so he had a large pool of money going in.

I have done their weekend class and attended a couple of the case studies. I thought it was good but could never bring myself to pay the 20,000 membership fee. Maybe I will be stuck working for the man the rest of my life. I have talked to a few others that have done well with them so I don't think it BS. I didn't like how they pushed to pull money out of your 401k so you could invest with them. I believe some of the education they provide allows you to invest without being accredited but I could be wrong.

I did like that they pushed for their leads to keep slots open for smaller dollar investors so first time investors could get started.

I have been to a few other meetings with groups, read a lot online and it seems like a lot of the deals are structured very similarly. I just have trouble with the illiquidity of the investment. It scares me to lock up large sums of money for 5 years.

Red pear - would love to know how to get on your mailing list for next project or investment.

you've been at it 15 years now? making me feel old..

I would be happy to discuss any time. My contact information is in my TxAgs profile.

As others have said, you definitely don't need to pay someone $20,000+ to succeed. I "retired" at 33, and did pay anyone a single dollar to join the club.

Jamie is a great resource/honest and will point you in the right direction.

I have heard of Lifestyle for years thinking it was some type of pyramid scheme and finally just looked them up after reading this thread. It seems like a hand holding help group which you are better off figuring it out yourself through the internet, web, books etc.

I tell people it is best to Learn to Learn. Anyone can feed you info, but the time put into the learning process is many times more valuable than what you are learning. People do not have the patience for this but you grow faster as a person during the process and not actually learning it.

I did most of my learning on Bigger pockets b/c people will typically give you great answers. I bought some properties 8 yrs ago, have 10 currently from 400k to 2M. My portfolio had as much to do with the market than any exceptional program/idea. I tell people 8 yrs ago, you could throw a dart blind folded and you would do well.

I have invested in syndications for 4 yrs and starting to syndicate large deals (50M+). I plan on liquidating some properties too just because even the little amount of time I put into them is not worth the hassle.

One of the most important attributes to being successful is connections. I would put hard work then integrity then connections as most important in that order.

Hard work + integrity will make you successful. Connections pours gas on the fire. Once people see your work ethic/integrity, you will create many great connections who are similar to you which is a major accelerant.

t.roberts said:

---

A friend of mine was telling me about a local real estate investment group that has a high membership fee but offers good education and networking opportunity that can lead to a good ROI. I was just curious if anyone has had experience with real estate investment groups and whether they liked that format or not.

---

If the 10-20K is only worth the networking opportunities. Truthfully, if there are lots of people signing up for the premium membership, the networking opportunities will be marginal at best.

If you really want to get into real estate then start reading bigger pockets, save 50-100K, study the market, and jump into a property. At worse, you will learn alot even if you lose some $$. At best you will figure out what are good deals, meet contractors/bankers/people of like mind, build strong relationships.

I just checked and they del Walmsley net worth is about 6M. If Lifestyle was such a great program, he surely should be worth 60M+

I can gladly teach anyone that wants to listen how to grow a rental property portfolio with next to zero of their own money or how to get access to as many quality sponsors through syndication as you'd ever need.

I professionally deal with both everyday of my life and have never charged a cent to anyone.