If you’ve been in the real estate business for longer than say, ten minutes, you’ve probably run across any number of self-appointed real estate “gurus”, claiming to have made outrageous amounts of money in the real estate market. There are several things which the websites (or emails) of these purported investment geniuses have in common that you’ll certainly notice. One is that many, if not most of these websites are trying to sell you something other than real estate.

Usually, they’re trying to either sell you advice along the lines of “how you can become a billionaire real estate investor just like me” in the form of e-books or courses. There are also those you who promote a “Done for You” real estate system which promises to make you immensely successful by taking all the work away from you. (Why don’t they just send you the big check too?)

This means one of two things: either these real estate gurus are intentionally trying to bilk people interested in making money in real estate investment with information which is at best flawed and at worst outright fraudulent or that these “gurus” didn’t really make their fortunes in real estate – if indeed they’ve made a fortune at all.

Like the saying goes, on the internet no one knows you’re a dog – they also don’t know that you’re not really a multimillionaire or that you actually know nothing at all about real estate! Either one could be the case, but it’s far more likely to be the latter. Think about this for a minute. Have you asked yourself, How many of the “gurus” are really investing in real estate?

There is something very important that you should know about if you haven’t pieced it together already. There is a select “members only group” of self appointed real estate gurus who get together every other month to come up with new marketing methods and “hype creation” to sell more product and line their pockets with dollars! They decide when the hype is going to start, laying the groundwork building up until a big wave comes up with a sense of urgency that you have to buy NOW or this fabulous method of investing will be gone for ever!! (If you did this in the Stock Market, you would be jailed )

How many ways can you come up with a new foreclosure course, a new wholesaling method, or a new real estate system? It’s all a matter of changing the graphics, the guru name, and marketing message to attempt to out do the last big product launch.

The way these real estate gurus use their online presence is questionable. I see many gurus hoping on board “launch promotions” when they should know better! Do you ever wonder, if they actually READ the material before sending out their endorsement? I have seen material where it was half correct, misleading or just badly put together. Some of the ideas, sound good in theory, but they just don’t work in real life. Yet, The product gets promoted because these marketers know that if you create another hype, people start to believe it AND buy it!!

The lure of money of quick and easy money for these gurus is easy to understand. People respond to “easy, simple, fast” money making methods. Clearly, these are not genuine real estate investment experts we’re dealing with here. They’re often experts, all right, but not in real estate. These people are actually information marketers (or sometimes affiliate marketers) rather than real estate success stories.

The business model followed by these marketers tells the tale – they use the same strategies affiliate marketers have been using for years. There are telltale signs that you’re dealing with an information marketer. One thing which you should also be aware of is that many of these people actually are affiliate marketers trying to sell you on someone’s system (and if you guessed that the people whose systems they’re selling also are information marketers rather than real estate experts, give yourself a pat on the back). If you see several lookalike websites all selling the same “wealth building money funnel system” or something of the sort, then you can be certain that this is exactly what’s going on – and that you should look elsewhere if you’re hoping to get into the real estate business.

The best bet if you’re interested in becoming involved in real estate investments is to avoid anyone who calls him or herself a “guru” like the plague. You’re much better off working with a traditional real estate business or individual investor than working with these affiliate marketing-style real estate investors. Even the few among them who are genuinely in the real estate business at all aren’t people you want to do business with – remember, if they were really as big of a success as they claim, they certainly wouldn’t be trying to hawk their system to you on a poorly designed, flashy website. If you take nothing else away from this article, remember this: it can save you a lot of hassle and most likely, more than a little money as well.

Lets be honest folks, making money takes work. There is no free lunch! Anything that sounds too good to be true, usually is. If you want to be successful you have to take proper actions and understand why you are doing what you are doing! The Good news is that there are ethical, honest, real estate gurus out there. Research them. You will find they don’t do product launches, close their doors if your don’t buy now, or have their call center try and sell you expensive mentoring programs. The Honest Gurus know that business will come to them automatically because they are actually helping people become successful.

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Duncan Wierman is a full time investor in Greenville, SC. After spending $1,000’s on courses and seminars that did not work (and were nothing more than sales pitches for more product, he finally decided enough was enough and release his own Hype free course to help people succeed. http://www.duncanwierman.com