No Money Down Real Estate?

Most people dream of one day owning their own home. Some even dream of getting rich by owning multiple properties. Never having to work another day in your life can be a pretty appealing thing - that's why so many buy lottery tickets - but we're not here to talk about the lottery, we're here to talk about real estate.

No doubt you've heard the name Carleton Sheets, if you've been around long enough. He promises that if you simply follow the program he's created, you will be able to purchase as many houses as you could ever want, using little or no money down. Perhaps you have even seen the infomercials showing dozens of happy & successful people who are glad to tell you how much they are making by following the course.

But have you ever read the fine print on the screen below these happy people? It always says something along the lines of 'Results not typical. Your experience may vary'. Obviously, not everyone can be successful at this, or else everyone would be owning a half dozen houses and nobody would be renting any houses.

However, this doesn't stop people from shelling out almost $300 (4 payments of $59.99 + $29.95 shipping & handling + $9.95 trial period) for the Carleton Sheets 'No Down Payment' course. So what do you get for all that money?

I was fortunate enough to be able to get the complete set on eBay some time back, for a fraction of the original price. I can tell you that you do get a great deal of materials. You get a bunch of CDs as well as a bunch of assorted notebooks, worksheets and papers.

At first, it looks like it's worth it. After all, the sheer volume of materials definitely makes it worth calling it a 'course'.

But what is actually in this course? The first CD is essentially a 'pep talk'. A 'you can do this' commercial type thing. This is despite the fact that you've already bought the course.

The second CD tells you how to check and build your credit as well as how to establish yourself as an investor. One of the tips on this CD is how to drive around neighborhoods (where there may or may not actually be houses for sale) and ask the people who live there about prospective real estate. Unfortunately, in this day and age, that is probably a good way to meet unsavory characters or to get mistaken for a suspicious looking person and have the police called on you. It may have been a good idea, once upon a time, but no longer.

CD 5 finally tells you how to judge what a rental property is worth and CDs 6 and 7 deal with actually buying the real estate with no money down and walking away from closing with money.

The rest of the CDs deal with things like negotiating and getting partners for your real estate deals.

The paperwork you get with the course pretty much parallels that of the CDs, so there's not really any 'new' information there.

I would say that CDs 1 and 2 are essentially worthless. You've already decided to give the course a try, so you don't need CD 1. CD 2 is full of information that you can get online for free, about building your credit. The stuff on CD 2 about finding houses to purchase is mostly just common sense stuff. CDs 5-7 may be the only ones in the set that actually have something besides free information or just plain common sense.

When the Carleton Sheets program first came out, it was probably a very good deal. You couldn't learn this kind of stuff without going down to your local library and spending a lot of time researching. But now, with the internet, you can have most of the information available for free on various websites.

The tricks and tips that the course suggests for getting your house with no money down or to walk away from closing with money also don't seem very applicable today. One would need, despite his claims of being able to use this after a recent bankruptcy, very good credit to be able to do this.

On the other hand, the program/course is good because it is useful to have everything in one place, but I don't think it's worth $300. If you can find it used for $50 or less, go for it; it might give you a few ideas you wouldn't have thought of yourself. Otherwise, save your money and do research online instead.