MY TELEPHONE RANG AT WORLD HEADQUARTERS. I WISH YOU'D HAVE BEEN THERE TO SPEAK WITH THE WOMAN

One recent evening I got a call from a woman.  She didn't identify herself, but her question was where she could go to find out what houses were going to be foreclosed.  I asked her if she thought hers was going to be one of them.

<<--BILL CHERRY REALTORS, WORLD HEADQUARTERS

"No, sir," she said, "I want to go buy a couple of them, fix them up and sell them."  She went on to tell me that she had seen a program on TV about how easy it is to do that and get rich, and had bought the fellow's books and DVDs.

I asked her if she had read the material and listened to and watched the DVDs.  "Sure have," she said.

I said, "After all of that instruction you didn't learn how the foreclosure process works and where to find out what will be auctioned and when?"

"No, sir."

"And did the instructor tell you that you would have to have cash or some other form of purchase funds acceptable to the trustee?  And did the instructor tell you that you had to deliver those funds if and when you won the auction?"

"No, sir."

"So do you have, say $100,000 in your savings account that you can use to cement the purchase if you win the auction?

"No, sir."

So at that point I asked her to give me a few minutes to explain how the process works.  Of course when I finished, she knew she had invested in a get rich course that was totally useless to her.

I want to know why these hucksters are allowed to make these claims?  One of them who sells a real estate investment course has been dead for at least ten years, yet there he is on TV advertising his course...even promising that the purchasers get to personally ask him questions by telephone. 

This is yet another lobbying project the National Association of Realtors could work toward getting stopped.  It would be one more way they could work toward rebuilding the dwindling reputation of Realtors.

Copyright 2008 - William S. Cherry