Inside Track Property Investment Courses

Legacy_user

These courses cost £2495 if you sign up on the day of the indroduction seminar and includes taking a partner. Does anyone have experience of these courses. Although it does not appear to be an out and out scam it does beg the question is it worth the money? To do the course and find out you already know most of what they are saying or that what they are offering is of no value to you is rather expensive.
Please can anyone advise?

chrisall

I have been on one of these seminars, yup cost 2.5k - was it worth it? I would say yes, it's worth it .....as long as you are serious about investing in buy-to-let & have the time / capital to do so. The 2 day seminar does provide a lot of interesting ideas / concepts, as well as contacts with specialist lenders & advisors. There is a lot of generic advise given, but I would say that I learnt a lot.

In my case I haven't subsequently taken the plunge into buy-to-let because a) I don't have enough equity in my home to do so, and b) I think the current economic climate, esp. the possible continued increase in interest rates, makes it too risky.

The only negative thing that I would say about the seminar is that there were a few sales pitches, including 'special on-the-day discounts' & such incentives. Whilst there was no high-pressure selling, I would personally avoid signing up for anything on the day.

* No connection with Inside-Track, other than being a previous delegate.

System

These courses cost £2495 if you sign up on the day of the indroduction seminar and includes taking a partner.  Does anyone have experience of these courses.  Although it does not appear to be an out and out scam it does beg the question is it worth the money? To do the course and find out you already know most of what they are saying or that what they are offering is of no value to you is rather expensive.
Please can anyone advise?

southsea13

DO NOT waste £2.5k on their rip-off seminars:it`s just a sales pitch to get you to go to their even more xpenisve £6.5k `membership` seminars (not forgetting the £119 per month).

Save a load of money and just buy some books from Amazon. :money:

spuds_2

If they are making so much from property why are they running seminars? Because the seminars make more money. £2.5k is a lot of money - I would do as much research as you can on your own as this is money that could be put into a property. There is a Tonight special Friday evening with experts giving their predictions on house price rises. Manchester at the moment is saturated with new build flats - I don't think the buy-to-let market is a goer here at the moment. Unless you have massive equity in a property, you cannot rent it out for enough to cover the mortgage.


There are some reviews of Inside Track at the bottom of this page:

http://www.property-profits.com/press_reports.htm

- someone does mention the phrase "rip off merchants".

Here's an article from the Guardian - "two Guardian readers could face financial disaster..."

http://www.property-profits.com/press_reports.ht

Here's some things from the Mail on Sunday's finance site:

http://boards.thisismoney.co.uk/tim/threadnonInd.jsp?forum=78&thread=72487&message=187476

southsea13

If you get a chance have a look at our story in The Guardian Money (03/03/2007).
Inside Track are a rip-off. Please don`t fall for it like we did.
With any luck these `investment clubs` will be shut down if enough people complain about them.
Of course that doesn`t refund the money to the hundreds of people who have gone `all the way` with IT :eek:
If you want to talk about IT further please contact me. I will be setting up a website in the near future and going to the `free` workshops in the hope of giving people a clue as to what they are letting themselves in for.
Best Regards
David :money:

BBC

I attended a free seminar and they were a lot of people who parted with the cash and attended the seminar. I looked on ebay and someone was selling DVD of the seminar and basically they show you how to look for opportunities in property. we bought that instead. Few really good ideas but you can do that with your own free research

shuggie_2

What is a rip-off?

Something that dupes you into spending money under false pretences, I'd say.

Inside Track openly say they started the seminars as pure training events so I don't understand why its a scam to run such events and, as an example, I make a lucrative living out of configuring SAP software. The cost of SAP courses? £1500 a day. If you want to gain knowledge to subsequently make money, yes its an expensive up front cost but has it paid me back? yes many, many times over.

To me its only a scam to those who believe there is such a thing as a free lunch. And if you believe that you are mug - end of.

No one forces you to pay the money. Most people do it to gain access to knowledge and other people of a similar ilk to help them accelerate the growth of a property portfolio. In my case, I already had 5 buy to lets and quite a bit of experience but there is still plenty to be gained from such a course. Its people's experiences that bring the context and understanding you won't get from a book (as I know using the SAP example earlier. A course only takes you so far. It then took me 2 years+ doing it to become any kind of expert).

Of course they are earning fees for:-
- the OPTIONAL seminar
- OPTIONAL membership (giving access if you choose to services to make buying easier and better discounts (through bulk buying) and additional "free to members" seminars)
- transparent finders fees for any property you CHOOSE to buy through them
- transparent mortgage arrangement fees for the motgages which you can OPTIONALLY arrange through them

At no stage do they tell you that you MUST do any of the above. As far as I know in this world
- NO training company would offer anything other than paid seminars. well not if they hope to survive!
- NO business can offer free services to property buyers. well not if they are to survive!
- NO business looks for properties for you without charging a fee
- NO INDEPENDENT mortgage broker provides mortgages without charging a fee. If they are free to the buyer, then they are charging the lender and so cannot be considered independent.

Everything is optional. They openly say you can do everything yourself and be successful at it. Yes they want you to do it through them instead and earn their fees.

I think the issue here is more people's gullibility and mad belief that somebody else will just give them money without
a) having to invest money and/or time of their own
b) having to spend time and/ or money educating yourself on the field you are going to invest in
b) having to do something yourself to achieve that end.

It makes me laugh that nobody worries about the fees and costs associated with pension funds, ISAs, Unit Trusts etc. Yes, you can buy and sell your own chosen shares instead and do it that way. Most people don't and quite happily pay someone else to do that for them in ISAs, Pensions, Unit Trusts etc.

I can't honestly see the difference.

The one reservation I do have is purely in relation to the weekend seminar. I personally don't think its suitable for people who have little or no money to start with and I think they should not accept money from such people on their seminars. Such people need to get in the property market at least as their own home first before moving on to investing in it.

Property is though a good way of making money over the medium to long term, particularly in the UK. In my opinion it offers a much better risk/return than other investment options available to joe public.

shuggie_2

It may not be a goer in Manchester at the moment but there are always other places where it is a goer. You just have to do your research.

shuggie_2

Southsea 13. Did you actually try out any of the techniques you were given on the seminar? If so, I'd be interested in how/why the reasons you found that they didn't work and so lost you money? I guess I'm as sceptical of people who say its a rip off as I myself was originally of the seminar itself.

Basically I'm interested in informed opinion be it from them or you. At the end of the day, its knowledge and experience that allows you to be good in any field be it teaching, medicine, IT, stocks and shares, property. I certainly wouldn't consider walking into a classroom tomorrrow and expecting to be a good teacher. The same applies to dealing in stocks & shares or buying property.

I have tried doing it on my own, I have also bought through a company that buys at a discount and does refurbishments and I've also bought through IT. They are all different experiences and I've learnt from them all. Overall I'm happy with the outcome but in the future I may even return to doing it on my own again.

I'm glad you're avoiding the ripoffs and I'd be interested to know what you have you done so far and how your portfolio is doing.

southsea13

Hi Shuggie

I`m glad to hear things are working out for you. Unfortunately, most Inside Trackers have lost out big time.

Watch this weekend`s press when the s*** hits the fan part 2 :money: