Learning Annex Real Estate Expo - Day II

Robert Kiyosaki

Robert talked about investing and introduced various people on his team (his wife, executives at an oil company). He got quite upset at a guy who wouldn’t lower his hand, demanding that it was his turn to talk.

Reggie Brooks

Today was much much less crowded. Only 8 or so rows were filled in the seminar.

Reggie Brooks told his story … of how he fixed up his first house and made a 41K profit. And then he explained that he didn’t know how to look at comparable sales, and therefore left 40K of profit “on the table”, so therefore we should buy his program and learn more from him.

Ebay Riches – Duane Barney

Another room where only the first 5 rows were filled, but they insist we leave no empty seats so we have to touch arm to arm with neighbors. We also can’t move back to an empty row. He’s hasn’t gotten into talking about anything about eBay yet, so I’ll go check something else out.

David Lindahl

He was presenting in the keynote room. They keynote room has much much more space and they let you sit where you ant and the sound is better today….A good number of the non power-house speakers speak once in the keynote and then several times in the breakout rooms. So even through the first few seminars on Sat were extremely crowded and they had to exclude people, by Sunday, there are lots of seats. Since the same seminars repeat, I’m sure you can see whatever you want in the course of the weekend.

David partners will his students…. He matches up students with money and take a percentage for the brokerage. Owns the Lindog group. Acquisition teams buying up multi-families.

It begs to question that if these guys are so rich off real estate, why do they spend this time speaking to the mob and diligently preparing to making lectures that are masterpiece works at selling their product. Most addressed this in their lectures saying that they loved to help others. Another claimed that all his book, lecture and program sales went to charity. I suspect that the source of students leads not only to immediate revenue to others things…. One had setup a network of professionals he would make available only to his students, David partnered on deals with his students.

The speakers did seem to know their fields…. And if I was interested in pursuing that particular area, I’d would consider their program. The lectures seemed to focus very little on the quality of the program, but on the ease of how it will be to strike it rich with one particular area of investment. From the Tax Lien lecture, we are going home thinking it’s trivial to earn 25% back with no risk and a few hours of effort a week…. That’s the worse case and every so often you get a whole house for a few thousand dollars. Hey, it sounded so good, I’ll definitely investigate, but I’m going to fork of $2000 on the spot.

The speakers say that their offers are special Learning Annex deals. Or, a funny one, one claimed that only 50 people will get a special extra offer because there is limited room (which almost caused a stampede to the back) – I went back at the end of his next seminar and the same thing happened.

Tax Strategies –Patrick James (representing Scott Estill, a former Senior Trial Attorney for the IRS)

Patrick started out by saying he supposed to introduce Scott, but instead he had to do the seminar. He we representing Scott Estill, a former Senior Trial Attorney for the IRS.

After his story about his idol Scott, Patrick shared some good information

- Any meals or entertainment within 24 hours of a business discussion are tax deductible – as long as your intent for the meeting is to do business. It also must be reasonable.

- Minors can earn up to $5000 per year tax free. He suggests you set up an account to pay your kids for work and then use it for purchases for the kids.

- Put your corporate logo on your shirt, then it is considered advertising and tax deductable

- Have an “employee of the month” prise. Purchase a gift certificate from the company and give it to the employee (including yourself).

- Commuting miles are NOT tax deductable. However, miles that you drive too and from mailbox are. As are miles to go to the store to get business magazined.

James suggested having a C-Corp to hold your assets and a separate LLC. As I understand, he said the LLC would pay your C-Corp a management expense and then be used to disperse dividends (which are exempt from social security and the minimum tax rule).

He sold a package too for a little under $2000. This included 2 tickets to a 2 day seminar by Scott Estill, a former Senior Trial Attorney for the IRS, and an offer for Scott to do your 1040 for 3 years. I checked his site and the seminar was $900 per person. I was interested, but I wasn’t able to attend the January conference dates, though I’m going to keep an eye on the February Chicago seminar.

I popped into a few others with my friend and also compared notes with the sessions I missed, and then decided we were seminar and sold out so we left. I’m very glad I went as I got exposed to new things. For example, though I read a lot, I don’t think I would have picked up a book on tax liens. I also ordered Scott Estill’s book on taxes and have it on the list of seminars I’d like to attend. I’m also going to examine my corporate structure as Family Limited Partnership and C-Corp/LLC combination. And Tony Robbins was very relevant in giving me a new perspective.