The Deals In Progress Forum
I'm starting a new thread here because the "Container Man" thread has left all discussion of Lucius and has become about the Deals in Progress Forum and its special rule allowing advertising. Therefore it seemed to me to be appropriate to let the topic out for "public" discussion.
Allow me to begin with some discussion of how the special rule forum came about.
When Joel was considering the Commercial site he came to me and asked what features I thought would make that site attractive to the "professional" real estate community.
This is not exactly my first experience of such things. Years ago I was in a REI group here in Chicago which was essentially a landlords group based in a certain neighborhood. The group had a few hundred members most of whom owned less than 6 units. There were about a dozen members who made a living in real estate and who each owned 100 units or more (a few guys with unit counts in the thousands). At every meeting the "professionals" were buttonholed by some guy with a 3 flat asking newbie questions. Now up to a point that's fine. But there comes a time when these guys stopped comming to meetings saying "Why should I spend 4 hours a month giving away advice?"
Finally we instituted a smaller group just for them (you had to have 100 units to attend) it was called the Breakfast Club. And you know what Breakfast club meetings were about? Doing deals. "I need a good general contractor to renovate a building downtown." "Does anybody know somebody in the zoning department who can help me out with this variance?""I'm looking for a money guy who can do this deal."
So when Joel asked me about the features which existed on the then-current version of TCI I thought back to that experience.
The property listings, the lenders category, and the forums. I said that while each of these were valuable I did not think that any of these would be over-the-top attractive to Joel's target market. There are already multiple modes of searching for properties for sale, multiple methods of acquiring lenders, and "professionals" do not for the most part need "How do I do a short-sale?" kind of advice. If they don't know they pick up the phone and call an Attorney or an accountant.
I suggested the Deals In Progress forum.
Yes, it is a violation of the no advertising rule, but I do not see the no advertising rule as handed down from on high. Clearly when TCI started the rule was not in place. There are still dozens of examples scattered through the forum archives of ads. I think my objections to the rule have been on-the-record from the begining. Quite frankly I do not exactly see the purpose of a real estate discussion group which is about something other than making real estate transactions happen.
So John is right when he says that this forum without the "no advertising" rule is an accomidation to something I have been lobbying for ever since I came to TCI. He is correct that he banned me under a different user name for attempting to do deals before I understood the rules. I am guilty. I plead "no contest". If attempting to get a transaction done is a crime on TCI then I am a criminal.
None the less since coming to an understanding of the rules I have attempted to abide by them while lobbying to have them changed.
The Deals in Progress is an experiment in that change. I told Joel I thought I could police the forum to the point that it did not get over-run with junk. If I am proven wrong I will recant and the forum will get killed. So far I don't see much evidence of this alledged avalance of scam artists and hustlers. "Deals" has been up for two weeks. In that time there have been 6 posts. One of those lead to a fairly interesting thread that I moved to the legal forum about regulations regarding raising money.
Finally, turning to the question "How does a new person avoid scams when you cannot judge the difference between a hustler and scam artist."
One avoids such things by learning to do due dilligence. And I think the way we help the new person do that is by allowing questions regarding potential deals. "Who's your title company?" "Why do you believe there is a market for this product?" "How do I know you will make the payments after you take my house subject-to?" "How much reserve do you have in this deal?" In part that is what the Deals in Progress is about, helping the newbies learn to analyse a deal in depth.
Some of the rules:
The "Deals in Progress" Forum is an experiment. The normal TCI "no advertising" rule does not apply here. All other TCI Rules remain in effect: No Fishing, no spamming, no hustling or playing guru, no group events, no YELLING, no bashing, name-calling or personal attacks, no flaming, no personal contact information.
Here is the hustle so someone is already doing it and on any other fourm this would get deleted. The reason is how do we know this person has ever done a deal or knows anyone who could help this person?
This would also be considered self serving implying that this person knows people who can help the poster when in essence this person is probably looking for a piece of the action and advertising the fact that they want deals run by them.
"I actually know a couple people who work with people who work the end of the industry you need. Let me think about this a little, talk to them (I don't even have enough information to be dangerous) get back to you."
Also the creative investor would not be posting about L/O's, Sub 2's, etc. in the "Deals" area by the way the rules are laid out , so let's discount this would happen and not mix apples and oranges.
If you are concerned about the newbies then change the name of the forum to the "Due Diligence Forum" and answer specific question related to deals, not I have someone that can help you, what does this have to do teaching anyone.
Tell them where the best place to look for someone to help them complete a deal that is a professional in their own right.
$Cash$
Mark,
The reason I posted rather than send you a private message is because you asked for comments and to prove a point about what can happen.
You cannot possibly control this forum as well as the other forums are controlled. Having owned radio and television stations I can assure you I know about advertising and the effects both pro and con. By the way aren't millions of dollars worth of radio and television stations commercial properties? Damn I forgot I have done commerical deals, I guess Subject To ain't all I do. The records are in the Federal Communicaitons Commission files.
When someone advertises on your forum you have no idea who they are or if the deal is real or not. Telling me you are going to question them to find out, sure you are, I could come on with a phony name and have you selling ice to eskimo's or investing in Cryonic Container Acres.
We can at least watch how a poster posts to see if he or she knows how to spell real estate or not.
Any member of TCI through their posts gains the respect of the board and the Moderators or they are back parking cars. Now that I think about that in Las Vegas that's good for about $100K a year.
If you would send me the mission of what you want to accomplish on this forum I could structure it so it made sense and protected within reason members of TCI.
Orlando, 68% percent occupancy rates and no gaming devices, I will stick with putting casinos deals together in Las Vegas, I have done that also, is that considered commercial also.
$Cash$