Tuesday, April 08, 2008

The Good Guys Win for once

One of my Mentee's contacted me about a real estate course she took about learning how to invest in real estate. The interesting thing was that the instructors also used their influence to encourage the student to buy home from them. The old bus ride scam. It was in a bad location, unmarketable, needed expensive repairs and was overpriced. In my book this is a complete conflict of interest and probably in violation of a realtors code of ethics.

You either teach or sell real estate but both raises red flags to me. I can't tell you how many people I have heard this same story from. Thankfully my student retained an attorney and was able to recover some of her money. Live and learn.

Be Well-Claude

Hi Claude,
I thought you would enjoy hearing this news -- I received a settlement from the realtors who sold me the condo in Westminster. I asked a real-estate lawyer to write a letter, asking for every cent the realtors made off me, including their commission for selling the property to me and the tuition they charged me for their classes.

They were covered by an insurance policy for this kind of thing, so their insurance paid most of it (nearly $5,000) -- and they had to come up with another $2,000 of their own money. Nobody contested the amount.
So, thank you for urging me to do this.
(Name withheld because we are smart cookies)