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John T. Reed’s views of various real-estate-investment gurus 3

Scott Britton - University of Real Estate Letter---I do not recommend
According to a promotional mailing I received, he sells a video in which you learn how to "make $10,000 in 98 days." $10,000 divided by 98 = $102.04 per day or $102.04 divided by eight hours = $12.76 per hour. According to my local want ads, you can make that much in jobs like the following: driver, chauffeur, customer service, child care site supervisor, carpet cleaner. Britton's way of making the $12.76 a hour is rehabbing buildings that you must buy, rehab, then sell to get your money. There is far less risk and effort in a customer-service job.
Bill Bronchick
I disagree with him on due-on-sale clauses. See my article on the subject.
Albert Brown, Jr.(Southern CA)---Unknown
I recommend that you use my Real Estate B.S. Artist Detection Checklist to evaluate this guru. A visitor to this site said he was a good guy with reasonable prices and ethical, practical advice.
Louis Brown—I do not recommend
Bob Bruss-I recommend
Nationally syndicated real estate columnist, author of occasional books, publisher of California Real Estate Law newsletter and a national real estate advice newsletter. Solid investor with a law degree and extensive experience. He and I do not agree on everything, but I recommend his books, newsletter, and column without hesitation.
Larry Burkett—died 7/4/03
Author of Business By The Book, The Complete Guide of Biblical Principles for the Workplace and Using Your Money Wisely, Biblical Principles Under Scrutiny. Many people believe the Bible is the word of God. It turns out, there is considerable discussion of financial matters in the Bible. Larry Burkett is a sort of combination Bible fan and personal finance/business guru. His books give his interpretation of what the Bible says about various financial issues.
I do not disclose my religious beliefs. Nor do I tell other people what religion they should join. I leave that to people like Robert “Did I tell you I was a missionary” Allen. (A missionary is someone who tells you that you are in the wrong religion, he is in the right one, and that you should switch to his. That’s Part I. In Part II, he tells you that you must send 10% or some such of your income to his religion’s headquarters for the rest of your life if you buy Part I.)
Having said that, however, I must add that I welcome ethical analysis of the various approaches to real-estate investment. There is far too little ethical discussion in the real estate business. Whether the Bible is THE Good Book is something for you to decide. However, I do not think there is any question that it is A good book in many respects as far as ethics are concerned.
The code of ethics I recommend is
1. Tell the truth
2. Keep your promises
3. Treat others the way you want to be treated
Also, in real-estate transactions, I believe you are not ethical unless you require that persons with whom you do deals meet appropriate suitability standards. Almost no one does and most of the nothing-down and lease-option approaches now being pushed by various gurus fail those ethical standards. My Real Estate B.S. Artist Detection Checklist also offers detailed ethical standards for real-estate gurus.
In short, while I may not agree with every point Burkett makes, in general, most investors would benefit from study of the ethical implications of various real estate and business techniques whether it be based on the Bible, the Koran, or other popular religious or secular teachings.
John Burley (Glendale, AZ)—Unknown
I recommend that you use my Real Estate B.S. Artist Detection Checklist to evaluate this guru. I am told he appeared with Robert Kiyosaki in Australia. I would not have done that. His Web site is rather brief and vague, but still manages many hits on item #20 of my BS detection checklist, for example, when he refers to his “automatic system for Creating Wealth.” Says he “retired” at age 32. So what’s with the making speeches in Australia and selling products and “boot camps” off a Web site. He’s hustling a buck pretty hard for a retired guy. Few retired people have Web sites, and those that do only have family news and photos.
Joel Cassway-—I do not recommend
Too expensive for my tastes. Worked with Givens and Pino.
Cash Flow Generator (Cape Coral, FL)—I do not recommend
Now owned by Russ Whitney. See my extensive articles on him.
CCIM Courses-I recommend
I took the Certified Commercial-Investment Member of the Realtors® National Marketing Institute seminars in the mid-1970s. The ones on income-tax law and the time value of money were excellent. I did not much care for the one that taught how to do a feasibility study. Although it has been many years since I took those seminars, I have heard nothing since that would cause me to believe the current versions are any less excellent. The name of the Institute has changed to Commercial Investment Real Estate Institute. http://www.ccim.com/
George F. Coats-I recommend
Author of Smart Trust Deed Investing in California. Super book. Super guy. Best information I know of on trust deed investing. Those of you who do not live in California are foolish to wait for your state to produce a George Coats. Other states are generally not large enough to warrant the writing of real estate investment books aimed just at one state. Even if they were, guys as good as Coats are probably a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. You have to modify Coats' California book with your own local research if you want to invest outside California.
Peter Conti—Unknown
Uses the business name Mentor Financial Group, LLC. The purpose of an LLC (limited liability company) is to make it harder for you to sue the owners of the company in question successfully. Use my Real Estate B.S. Artist Detection Checklist to evaluate this guru. Advocates use of lease options. See my article on that subject. His Web site says Mentor Financial is “Registered by the Colorado Secretary of State’s office as a company in good standing…” That seems to imply some sort of approval or endorsement by the state. In fact, all corporations and LLCs are required to register with the secretary of state’s office. That’s about as meaningful as my saying I am “Registered by the California Department of Motor Vehicles as a vehicle owner in good standing.” The products on his Web site sound like the same old mix of nothing down, lease option, etc. that so many other gurus are pushing.
Wade Cook (Seattle, WA)-I do not recommend
Real Estate Money Machine author. He has declared bankruptcy multiple times, has unpaid fines levied against him by state attorneys general, has been the subject of cease-and-desist orders from attorneys general, has taken the Fifth Amendment in court, and has been indicted. Smart Money magazine did an extensive article (“Wade’s World”) on his financial and legal difficulties in October 1996. Call 800-925-0485 for a copy. The State of Texas went after Cook on 5/1/98. While you are at the FTC Web site, you may want to search around for other pertinent information. I suggest you bookmark my site before you do so you do not have to hit “back” a zillion times to find your way back. Here is a link to a Reader’s Digest story about Cook and other gurus. There is a devastating article from the Wall Street Journal at the Motley fool Web site. The Street.com has an article with a nose-diving graph showing the performance of Cook’s trades and another by a staffer who attended Cook’s seminar.
On 10/5/00, Bloomberg News accounts said Wade Cook Financial Corp. would offer refunds to thousands of investors who attended Wade Cook stock-market seminars. This was to settle action brought against Wade Cook FC by the Federal Trade Commission. Cook was also sued by the attorneys general of the states of AL, AZ, CA, ID, IL, KS, MO, NC, NM, OK, OR, PA, TX, and WA. Cook told investors they would learn how to double their money every 2 1/2 to 3 months and claimed “We do it all the time.” Cook’s corporation’s stock market investments lost 42% of their value in the first half of 2000.
Investors who did not earn back from stock-market trading at least what they paid for the seminar (up to $6,295) are eligible for refunds. Shares in Wade Cook Financial Corp sold for as much as $5.30 in 9/97. They now sell for 18¢. Although neither Cook’s students nor his shareholders have done very well (he owned 64.5% of WCFC on 4/30/00), Cook himself took $22 million out of the corporation in compensation—more than triple corporate earnings for the period.
Cook is a best-selling author (Wall Street Money Machine) and also wrote Real Estate Money Machine previously. He is one of a number of best-selling financial authors who make that list, in large part, a rogue’s gallery. The many people who buy Cook’s books and attend his seminars are idiots. I have talked to some on the phone. When they ask about him, I recite all his legal troubles, including his bankruptcies. They then ask what I think of his latest book. Like I said, idiots.
On 12/19/02, Wade Cook Financial Services was put into involuntary Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy (Case No. 02-25434) in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Western District of Washington. On 1/17/03, this was converted to a Chapter 22 reorganization bankruptcy on 1/17/03. When I did a search to confirm this, I typed Wade Cook bankruptcy into Google and immediately got the pertinent Web page of the Western District of Washington U.S. Bankruptcy Court Web site.
There is a story about it at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/134686071_wadecook30.html.
Russ Dalbey---Unknown
Loan brokerage. Not my area of expertise. Use my Real Estate B.S. Artist Detection Checklist to evaluate this guru.
Jay P. DeCima (Redding, CA)---I recommend
Reasonably-priced book ($24.95) Generally reasonably-worded brochure—although it is noteworthy that he tells you to whom the check should be payable, but gives no mailing address, thereby preventing you from paying by check. That’s the kind of mistake that disqualifies you from getting your financial-genius secret decoder ring.
Excellent book on the fixer strategy. I do not like the parts of the book that discuss partnerships and financing. I do not know if his more expensive products are worth their prices.
I could do without Jay's cornpone, Beverly Hillbillies costume and occasionally folksy language. De Cima is apparently from the Joe Land-Jimmy Napier School of Presenting Yourself as a Country Boy. It's a bit odd, but does not seem to prevent one from giving decent real estate advice. It's the guys who wear pinky rings and gold chains that you have to watch out for.
DeCima is a slob about checking his facts. For example, on page vii, he says, "nearly half the work force was unemployed during the Great Depression." It took me about 20 seconds to get the correct figure, 26% at the peak. The book contains a number of such Cliff Claven-style errors.
He also fails to attribute stuff he got from other people. For example, on page 93, he tells one of Joe Land's jokes without mentioning Joe and prefacing it with, "When I write about this subject, I'm always reminded of..."
When DeCima talks about non-fixer investment issues, his thinking is sometimes muddled, uninformed, or illogical. For example, his discussion at the top of page 9 and elsewhere in the book seems not to reflect an understanding of the time value of money. On page 116, he dismisses the use of computers in real estate out of hand. There is no doubt that computers can be misused. I recommend against all canned real-estate-investment-analysis programs. However, failure to use a computer to manage property or to analyze large amounts of useful, accurate data is idiotic.
He seems oblivious to an ethical issue on page 131. He says it's best to work with just one agent, in part, so you can get access to so-called "pocket listings." I was an agent for two years. "Pocket listings" do exist, but they are an unethical agent practice. A "pocket listing" is one which the agent keeps "in his pocket" and shows only to his best buyers. Since the agent has a fiduciary duty to get the highest price for the seller, he must publicize the fact that the house is for sale as widely as possible as fast as possible. If, instead, he only tells his favorite buyer, to avoid another agent splitting the commission, he is acting against the interest of his client, violating his fiduciary duty to the seller. You should not deal with unethical agents who keep listings "in their pockets" either as a buyer or as a seller.
Don't get me wrong. When DeCima talks about buying and fixing houses for profit, his book is excellent. But he says a number of things that I must dissociate from my general recommendation of the book lest readers think I agree with everything that's in it. Because I see a number of inaccuracies, exaggerations, and failures to attribute in the book, I worry that some of the unverifiable statements about DeCima's successes may be similarly inaccurate or exaggerated or the result of external factors rather than the result of DeCima's own efforts.
Dave Del Dotto (Hawaii and Modesto, CA)—I do not recommend
Former sheetrocker from Modesto who did infomercials featuring himself sitting on the beach in Hawaii. I debated him on Larry King Live. Del Dotto strikes me as the dumbest of the famous gurus. In one of the books he sold with his home-study course, he said to take advantage of a Farmers Home Administration loan. If you're not a farmer, he said, get one to "front for you." Many of the other gurus give similar advice. But Del Dotto is the only one I know dumb enough not to understand that the standard, get-rich-quick-guru way to deal with the issue is not to mention the farmer requirement. For the record, getting a farmer to front for you in a loan program that's for farmers only is a felony. Del Dotto's Modesto headquarters was foreclosed in the '90s.
The Wisconsin State Bureau of Consumer Protection published a Guide for Wisconsin TV stations which lists several "Questionable infomercials," among them those of David Del Dotto.
In the 6/8/98 Newsweek, Jane Bryant Quinn said that Del Dotto had gone bankrupt. I still see him on TV, only now this one-time "real estate expert" is selling products unrelated to real estate.
The WA attorney general sued Dave Del Dotto and his Affordable Housing, Inc. The suit alleges Del Dotto made numerous misrepresentations about real estate investing, some of which violate a U.S. District Court order. It also accused him of acting as a broker without a license: he collects $500 deposits to be credited toward closing costs for a mortgage which he will help them get.
The court papers said Del Dotto was a principal in a firm that filed bankruptcy and has been the subject of repeated enforcement actions by regulators, including the FTC and the Insurance Commissioner of Hawaii. They also allege that he tells seminar students inaccurate information, i.e., that they can pocket the proceeds of government-insured home-improvement loans, that they can get mortgages for 1% to 3% less than less informed consumers, that his customers typically make a profit in real estate using his system, that you can get free-and-clear title to a house by simply paying back taxes of as little as $500, that it's easy for people with bad credit to buy houses for nothing down, and that you can add $50,000 equity to a home by painting and adding carpet.
In short, WA says Del Dotto "charges high fees for information which is virtually worthless, outdated, and unethical." WA authorities were seeking a restraining order to prevent Del Dotto from holding a seminar in the state. Court papers reveal previously unknown facts about Del Dotto: IRS placed a lien on his Hawaii house in 1993. In 1995, Hawaii sued him for nonpayment of $5,000,000 in loans. He filed for Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy, and his corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1995. In 1996, he agreed to pay a $200,000 fine to the FTC.
What's new here is that government authorities have finally become appropriately aggressive in pursuing guys like Del Dotto. Unfortunately, the gurus seem to be ignoring the authorities to an extent, witness Del Dotto's alleged ignoring of a previous federal court order. Another new development: many gurus have begun to structure their pitches so as to run afoul of securities and licensing laws.
Many investors originally came into real estate as a result of pitches from gurus like Del Dotto. Too many investors still have vestiges of those original pitches in their real-estate-investment programs. See also David Martin's letter.
Dolf De Roos—I do not recommend
Click here for a review of De Roos’ book Real Estate Riches.
Claude Diamond (Chula Vista, CA and Winter Park, CO)-I do not recommend
Lease-option guru. I talked to Diamond and he seemed pretty sharp at the time. But I cannot recommend him for two reasons: His lease-option program has a 50% failure-to-exercise rate and his price for his "mentoring" service is in the multi thousands of dollars. See What you need to know about lease options for a discussion of their problems. See my Why you should not buy expensive seminars or mentoring services for more on Diamond's fee and my opinion of it.
I have received many different responses to negative reviews on this page---threats, attempted bribes, extortion, and attempts to "kill me with kindness." Diamond, however, takes the prize for the most juvenile response. "Juvenile" is not a word usually associated with mentors.
On 6/29/00, Bill Mencarow told me he had just learned that Diamond bought the number one ranking for the key words “Paper Source” at goto.com. Apparently this means that anyone who searches for “Paper Source” in goto.com’s search engine will get a list with Diamond at the top. Mencarow takes umbrage at this because he has been publishing the newsletter PaperSource and putting on the Paper Source convention for many years. A common law called “unfair competition” may be pertinent. “Unfair competition” is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary in part as “…endeavoring to substitute one’s own…products in the markets for those of another, having an established reputation and extensive sale, by means of imitating…the name, title,…the imitation being carried far enough to mislead the general public or deceive an unwary purchaser, and yet not amounting to an absolute counterfeit or to the infringement of a trademark or trade name. Singer Mfg. Co. v. June Mfg. Co., 163 US 169”
John,
I saw your web page. I am an attorney involved in litigation against Claude Diamond. My client was a young business entrepreneur who engaged the “mentoring” services of Mr. Diamond. He is being sued by Mr. Diamond. I am investigating Mr. Diamond, his background, credentials, and qualifications. I would be interested in speaking with individuals with similar consumer related complaints against Mr. Diamond. If you have any information, it would be greatly appreciated. Your web site is very informative. Thank you.

Name removed at the attorney’s request after being initially posted here at that same attorney’s request

Elmer Diaz (Houston)—Unknown
A reader says Diaz claims to have been the past president of the National Real Estate Investment Association. I had never heard of that organization. An Internet search reveals an organization by that name, but it appears to be for institutional real estate investors only. Institutional real estate investors are pension funds, REITs, etc. The reader also says Diaz is a “follower of Robert Allen, Robert Kiyosaki, and Robert Shemin.” Since I do not recommend Allen or Kiyosaki, it is unlikely I would recommend Diaz. The reader also characterizes Diaz as “a strong proponent of asset protection.” I generally think strong proponents of asset protection are paranoid and a little kooky. Another reader says Diaz has said nice things about Sheets but “does not endorse any guru.” I am not sure what the word endorse means in that phrase. If Diaz disagrees with the teachings of Allen, Kiyosaki, or Shemin, he ought to tell me so if this is incorrect. None of these guys are in my Rolodex.