I recall that in the spring of 2004, while Susan and I were travelling through Los Angeles, the bus stop benches were plastered with advertising for "get rich through real estate investing" conferences featuring Donald Trump, Robert Kiyosaki and Anthony Robbins.
I am shocked to learn that these conferences are still taking place, with the next one coming to Toronto on March 29-30, 2008. The usual suspects will be present - including the kingpins of the long-deflated real estate bubble and other new age icons - Donald Trump, Anthony Robbins, George Foreman, David Bach, the Teachers from "The Secret," and an additional "all-star line-up," including Jack Canfield, Alan Greenspan(!?!), and Magic Johnson.What? This is still happening in 2008?
I must be out of touch, because I don't get it. (I'll grant you, Canada as a location still makes sense. While we lack the United States' spiralling international debt, our central bank governors persist in inflating the Canadian money supply at no less frenetic a pace than our mania-prone cousins to the south.)
Since 2004, real estate investors have been brutally slammed. And now these gurus are going to tell us... get this... what again??? How to make money in real estate in 2008???
I don't have much more to say on this forlorn subject, except that the bus stop bench advertising has now changed.
What is being advertised in 2008?
Foreclosure assistance.
Trump and Robbins may still be running real estate wealth conferences (Kiyosaki pulled out of that game in 2005), but the bus stop benches are now telling a different story.
I would caution against following the pied piper on this particular adventure.
Maybe they should call it a "get rich through real estate investing seminars" seminar.LOL
ReplyDeleteI think you've nailed that one.
ReplyDeleteI believe (without checking) that Trump has been bankrupt at least once before. He's got to have a lot of empty real estate right now, though he probably has partners to pick up the capital costs (and losses).
Obviously, trendy seminars are a gold mine, and you don't have to spend hundreds of millions on the mining equipment!
I'm just amazed that the former (and ephemeral) real estate boom is still bringing them in to the seminars. What can they be thinking???
Maybe I should start doing seminars on gold investing! I suppose that with each new high in gold, the naive believe "that's as high as she's going for now!"
Gold can always go lower, but it will certainly move much higher than $900, and probably sooner rather than later - based on current market timing and demand factors.
I might add that gold was priced at $330 per ounce when I started following it in the spring of 2003, and it was still at $400 when I started blogging on the subject. Compare that to what real estate - or any investment outside the domain of commodities - has done since 2003!
ReplyDelete