I'd like to get your feedback regarding the Best-of-the-Best Investor sites on the web. If you are a current investor, what websites have helped you the most? As a start, I'd like to mention three that I feel are very usefull. First, www.johntreed.com -his "BS Artist Detection Checklist" is very usefull for analyzing real estate gurus. Second, www.CREonline.com -over 100,000 online members. very good info available. Third, www.Reiclub.com - Tons of info here, with a great online community.
Ok...now it's your turn!

I personally would not take the teachings of John T Reed as the gospel. Since he is not a current real estate investor and he did maybe 11 deals before he began to write books. Reed writes books...you know what they say "Those that do Do and those that cannot Teach. Reed has a little too much of his own BS for me.

Some things never change and John T Reed's BS list is absolutely correct. I've attend a lot of investment seminars and a handful did exactly what was on his list. 100% of the ones that played games like the ones on his list were complete BS artists. I knew it from the start, but often had friends who wanted to give them a try.

I think the three sites that Jss mentioned are all pretty valuable.

Reed is not even involved in Real Estate Investment... and in his entire life only claims to have had any direct contact with deals just over a dozen times... 20+ years ago.... He is simply a book seller. Some of Reeds things are correct but they are nothing he came up with himself.

Cre/ crei on line and others like them are good for specific forms of real estate investment, another is Dealmakerscafe.com where people who actually are involved in real estate investments on a personal and ongoing basis provide a forum with very little "Buy This" BS.

Key thing is what forms of investment and what types of properties your interests are in... different forums better suit specific interest.

I personally don't advocate Reed as a guru, but the BS list on his site is useful. Regardless of whether he thought of them all himself, so what. How many actual gurus come up with something themselves? They mostly just repackage something they learned along the way.

Reed's site gave me a third party resource to help prove to some of my beginning investment friends how to spot a fake. If there are other places to get the same information in one location, that's fine too.

i personally wqoulnd't take any of the "Guru's" too deeply. They don't know you or your situation so how can they guide you down the correct path. They sell thier product on how to make money in real estate. I guarantee they all made more money in thier teaching than they ever did in real estate. Do you think they would go through all the trouble to travel and tell people how they make money if they were making more sitting on thier butt buying real estate.

Reed's site is anything but a 3rd party resource...

He simply uses it to put down any one that doesn't pay homage to him...

One way to see this quickly is that he is not on the NOT Recommended list...

He has no first hand knowledge of investing today or even when he was a short term property manager, 20 years ago... if you call that a basis for investment knowledge then literally hundreds of thousands know more than Reed... he probably doesn't even like his cat...

Don't be fooled by the wannabee investment mentors like Reed.

Anyone looking for a religious experience from a real estate guru is really not only in the wrong field but wrong thought plane

Well Russ Whitney had a best selling investment book (which was great), but his seminars were a sham and Reed was right. They did everything in his list and, after finding other folks who got ripped off at Russ Whitney seminars, I realized that the purpose is to keep draining potential beginning investors instead of providing them with usable information.

I don't know about anyone else on Reed's site, but he was absolutely right about Russ, who is making millions taking from the small beginning investor without providing information. I was on the local news to warn people about the scam and am a first-hand witness to how ridiculously bogus the seminars were.

I agree in that Reed isn't an active investor. My Investments Professor (Phd) wasn't an active stock trader or stockbroker either.

Techniques are probably changing in aquiring property as times change, but most of you profit still goes back searching out the "distressed" properties such as pre-foreclosure/probate/default.. and Reed simply stays behind the curtain and writes about these strategies in a somewhat Textbook format, and he does point out other quality books>>>

www.probate-realestate.com
www.johnschaub.com

P.S. Reed's paper back books aren't even that long.

I will be checking out william bronchnick's "creative" books.

Glad I never bought any of Reed's stuff. I use creonline.com and reiclub.com.

Carlton Sheets is good too... ha ha ha

I also go to local clubs like yourreica.com and Austin Wealth Builders. CREI has lists of local clubs. We have several really good, active ones in Austin. Here\'s our list.

I think all of you are forgetting www.thecreativeinvestor.com. The website is very large, and sometimes can be daunting to people like me - non-computer person. But I have found it out to be very searchable for the Realtor.

I think they just started a Commercial version of their website also. Anyway..

Oh FYI. TCI's Commercial side can be located here:
http://www.thecreativeinvestor.com/commercial

Hey all - you're forgetting http://www.biggerpockets.com - we're not as daunting as creativeinvestor, and provide a very investor-friendly forum - http://forums.biggerpockets.com

In My opinion, the best investment network is found at www.thecreativeinvestor.com.

I've bookmarked the link below and read it regularly since it's updated with new articles every couple of days or so (have to click refresh each visit). It has some great syndicated column feeds from some great authors (my favorite is Bob Bruss):

http://www.magicbullets.com/news.php

Another site, www.rentalprop.com , has some good archieves about the nitty gritty of rental property management.

There is so much good information out there that you can become overwhelmed easily. Here is my suggestion: Read
"The Art of the Deal" by Donald Trump
"Retire Young, Retire Rich" by Robert Kiyosaki

Then buy an inexpensive single-family home or rent out your current home and build from there. Hands on experience in Real Estate is key

Mike
www.liveinvisalia.com

I'd read more than just Trump and Kiyosaki, but you are certainly correct that hands on experience is key!