Christian Millionaire

The Best Advice is Free (or at least very cheap)

I went to an estate sale last Saturday to bid on a property that needed a lot of work. I'm part of an investment group that's looking to rehab run down properties into something beautiful any homeowner would love.

I went with a real estate agent I hadn't met before, but who has been in the business for 19 years. He regularly works with investors and taught me a lot at that sale about what to do and what not to do.

The auctioneer (his last name's Parish) called out that he has a real estate course for investors if anyone was interested (Investors United School of Real Estate). I suppose he was assuming that most of the people in the crowd were interested in reselling the property - not living in it.

I asked my real estate agent if the course was worth the money. "It costs thousands, right? Most of these programs do. Is it worth it?" He told me that he'd had several graduates of the course work with him, and they still didn't know the basics. "Don't waste your money," he said.

In the front of his book, Creating Success from the Inside Out, Ephren Taylor says, "I want to be really clear about one point: I'm not here to give you a 'How-To' guide to riches and fame. Anybody who tries to offer you his or her step-by-step 'E-Z Guide' to achieving wealth is usually selling something of little value. In fact, the value is almost the inverse of the cost of the information: in other words, the more expensive the course, the less real-world value it often has."

Instead, Ephren suggests reading the Bible and learning how successful people think. (Reading his book is a great way to do that. Ephren's the youngest-ever African-American CEO of a publicly traded company. Learn more about Ephren.)

Bottom line: I'm not taking a real estate course. I'm going to keep reading and working with this successful real estate agent. He gives great free advice. After all, out of it he gets a regular client who's going to make him money.

posted by Terri @ 12:48 PM