The "cheese" has been moved for many of us. Get over it!

Bill J. Gatten

Real Estate Investor Trainer

It’s not how hard you can hit:

It’s how hard a hit you can take,

And keep on fighting.

The real estate investing industry of today has changed (i.e., the proverbial "cheese has been move for many of us.* The cross-country foray of REI gurus large and small has slowed significantly as many of the real estate club speaking venues have dried-up: the coaching and “mentoring” having been taken over by the club owners who find it financially prudent to purloin the information they have been given for free by past speakers, and then do the training programs themselves: putting some significant profits in their own pockets in the process…’all too often at the peril of their ill-informed "mentoring students."

For example, I was recently asked to be a guest speaker for a real estate investor's club in Massachusetts. The idea was that I would do a preview presentation in a Webinar sponsored by the REIClub, and I would then appear personally at an upcoming workshop in the area.

During the Webinar, I promoted our programs like I always do, ‘pointing out to the hundreds that I was told would be on the call, how the inherent risks and litigation dangers of all forms of so-called Creative Real Estate Financing could be avoided by using what is called the EHTrust Transfer?.

This is to say that by one's vesting a property with a title-holding trustee, and selling the trust’s personal property beneficiary interest instead of selling the real property's title interest, all the negatives and quite dangerous issues concerning due-on-sale admonitions (the Garn St. Germain Act) and anti-owner financing laws (Dodd-Frank Wall Street Consumer Financial Protection ACT), RESPA, HOEPA, TILA, FHA, FCRA, etc. could be avoided [all of which are major pitfalls in any seller-assisted or owner-carry financing scenario].

I then went on to mention how 100% of the benefits of homeownership can be transferred to an acquiring party by this means, ‘not only conveying 100% of the fee-simple bundle of rights in real estate ownership including all income tax deductions for mortgage interest and property tax): but also protecting (shielding) the property from either party's liens, lawsuits, judgments, divorce actions, probate, bankruptcy, etc. even IRS claims against the property.

Well, as it turns out...after the Webinar I discovered that only the club's owners were on the call (3 people), and that they abruptly cancelled my upcoming workshop ('for which cross-country accommodations Ca. to Mass.) had already been paid for) due to my having spoken ill of the very courses they were openly teaching and charging big money for in their own weekly mentoring programs…for their trusting members,

In my estimation, this kind of thing borders on Fraud when the promulgators of, say, lease options, contracts for deed, wraps and equity shares know that there is a better, safer, fully legal way to do all of these things...’but steadfastly refuse to let their students and followers be exposed to better and safer methods because they, themselves, don't wish to take the time to learn them.

But as they say: "Oh well."

There are four stages of any truly good idea:

1. Disbelief

2. Ridicule

3. Violent opposition

4. Acceptance as being self-evident.

Bill Gatten

*Re. the book, Who Moved My Cheese? by Dr. Spencer Johnson