Review of Real Estate & Wealth Expo in NYC

Yesterday, I attended The Learning Annex’s Real Estate & Wealth Expo at the Javits Center in NYC. The expo has been traveling to big cities in the US and Canada for the last couple of years and has generated quite a bit of press. They’re even paying Donald Trump a cool $1 million to speak and answer audience questions. Along with Trump, Robert Kiyosaki and wife, Kim, of Rich Dad fame, Tony Robbins, and Jim Cramer were also headlining, and 72 others held seminars on real estate and wealth.

Tickets were sold on a three tier pricing structure. VIP tickets went for $499 and gave you access to special seating in the keynote hall. Second tier tickets without the special seating - which I bought at a discount - went for $179. Access to just the expo hall and seminars - no keynotes - went for $49.

The conference was packed from the start until well into the evening. While I didn’t hear an overall total, Tony Robbins mentioned that 14,000 were packed into the keynote hall to hear him speak, so I’d guess that there were around 20,000 or so attendees total on Saturday.

What I can say with certainty is that the place was packed with would-be investors hoping that this weekend could make them “a millionaire”, as the conference program promised. I talked with a number of people at all stages. Most, it seemed, were beginners or had dabbled in real estate but weren’t too successful, though there were a number of successful investors there as well.

Personally, I went to hear the keynotes and check out a few of the seminars on running an internet business. I arrived around 9am, just in time to catch the last 15 minutes of Jim Cramer’s talk. I had heard Cramer speak before at an Investment Management conference held by The Wharton School and would have loved to hear his entire talk.

Once Cramer was finished, the sales pitches started. I’m not sure what the deal was, but it seemed like the keynotes were paid big bucks to be there and everyone else was there to push several thousand dollar products and services onto an eager crowd. I’m guessing the Learning Annex got a cut of any products and services sold since they were extremely efficient in taking people’s orders right then and there.

Bob Kittell was the first guy I saw and he spent much of his time pushing a website called InvesTools, designed to help you pick stocks. His talk was light on the specifics of day trading but heavy on the benefits - get in and out, buy covered calls, etc - and you can consistently make over 20% returns on your investments. The catch was that you couldn’t just buy a membership to the website. You had to spend about $8000 to attend their training seminars before you could join their site.

Then, attorney Robert Bluhm spoke about the importance of getting all your legal ducks in a row. His talk included good information about how you hold your assets - his big spiel was that no one should hold real estate in their own name because if they’re sued, the plaintiff can take everything. He touted the benefits of CRTs, living trusts, running your business as a C-Corp or LLC, and setting up Family Limited Partnerships (FLPs) to protect yourself from losing your assets if you’re sued. Then, he began the sales pitch for his $2000 software that would allow you to set all this stuff up yourself without the guidance of an attorney. And no, he wouldn’t give out his business cards but they had a hotline people could call for legal advice. It sounded very shady to me.

After that, I decided to check out some of the other seminars available to all attendees. I soon learned they were virtually all filled to the max and had lines of people waiting to get in. Not wanting to see anything that badly, I returned to the keynote hall where James Smith was speaking about flipping real estate.

Smith started off by announcing that he was different from the other speakers in that he wasn’t going to sell any books or tapes. He was here to tell it like it is. He was a self proclaimed “unemployable” guy who woke up at 11am and managed real estate for a living. To be fair to the guy, he was an extremely entertaining and believable speaker - but his primary purpose was to sell a $6000 package of training and consulting services that could help anyone become successful in real estate. If Smith was to be believed, there was virtually no risk in real estate and regardless of how poor your credit history was, you could still find a way to buy undervalued properties, fix them up, and sell them at a 30-50% profit.

Tony Robbins spoke after Smith for 2.5 hours and was probably the best speaker of the day. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in as I’ve heard that Tony Robbins live events are like evangelical services that rally everyone up into a frenzy. This wasn’t like that, though there was a considerable amount of audience participation. In most cases, we’d try experiments like introducing ourselves to the people around us in a variety of moods like fearful, angry, or confident. He also had us jumping up and down and screaming as if our favorite sports team had just won the national championships to demonstrate how we “could” celebrate our own victories if such behaviors were socially acceptable.

Admittedly, I got bored with Robbins about 1.5 hours in and decided to try another seminar outside the keynote hall. This time, I was able to find a seat in an eBay Millionaires course run by Duane Barney. I probably would have gotten more out of sticking with Tony Robbins as Barney’s seminar wasn’t about eBay so much as the no risk software he was selling that would make everyone gobs of money. I stayed for about 20 minutes, copied down the names of the websites he mentioned, and then left for the evening.

I’m a skeptic at heart, and since I found some of speakers a bit shady, I did a few searches. It turns out that the company Barney was promoting had 114 complaints in the last 36 months on the Better Business Bureau site. A search for some of the other speakers turned up complaints on RipOffReport.com and other forums. Unimpressed, I decided not to return today, though I had wanted to hear Trump speak.

I’d rate my experience there around a 3/5. For $100-200, the keynotes might be worth your money (maybe). Just be sure to check out the reputations of the other speakers online before you go. And be aware that if you want a balanced look at the risks and rewards of investing, this isn’t the seminar to attend.