Sunday, July 29, 2007

Still No Evidence

Invariably, in any discussion regarding the legitimacy of Nouveau Riche University, the NRU apologists eventually make claims along the lines of Wallace, a one-time commenter on this blog, or Matthew, some dude with zero friends over at Tribe.net. The refrain quickly becomes very familiar... they were once just as skeptical as the rest of us, but in the last X months they've bought Y properties and increased their net worth by some $ZZ,000... bla bla... The Secret... bla bla...

Of course when pressed for any actual property addresses the apologists either claim they're all hidden away in corporate entities ("bla bla... asset protection, bla bla") or they don't respond at all.

Not content to leave well enough alone, I've been actively researching public records in the hopes of finding anything of relevance to my particular Independent Student Advisor (ISA) and her purported status as a real estate investor. So far, in addition to finding her aforementioned corporate entities and documents in Maricopa County, all I've uncovered is her blog, as well as an NRU recruiting site called Fast Track Club (a site distinct from the one I mentioned in my prior post on NRU), which led me to a property marketing site called Nextep Real Estate Solutions - which currently has zero listings. Not even historical properties. Nothing.

A close look at the fine print of The Fast Track Club reveals the name of my ISA's business partner, who not surprisingly is listed as an agent in one of her corporate entities. Now we're getting somewhere! Unlike my ISA, this guy seems to actually own a few investment properties. But wait! Among all the warranty deeds, etc., we find a Civil Judgment (the fact it's in his favor is beside the point), and not one, but two trustee's sale notices!

I thought NRU was supposed to teach people how to be successful real estate investors!

Is there anybody out there?

UPDATE MAY 2, 2008: All of my ISA's NRU web sites have been defunct for a while, now, but it appears that Jess is still involved in a real estate scheme - Something called "INFOclosure", that appears to be a combination foreclosure listing service slash investment education thing. Well, I hope she likes her new line of work!

1 comment:

Einzige said...

If you've read all my NRU posts and you still aren't sure whether or not NRU is a bad idea...

Well...

Then I implore you to read these two books:

1) How We Know What Isn't So, by Thomas Gilovich, and

2) Tools of Critical Thinking, by David Levy

They won't set you back much if you buy used copies. After you've read those books you'll be in a much better position to evaluate what I've said and what the NRU salespeople have been saying.

Best wishes to you!