Wow, TCI Now Charges To Get Free Help?
I was just informed that once you have a certain level of success, this website is not free anymore.
I dont understand, I am helped by the experience here on the TCI.
If that experience is gone, then do we just buy books here now?
When will I be cut off?
Certain level of success?
Its free for a month then you have to subscribe. The cost of doing busness isnt cheap. However the fee is. Pay it, the bennifits will last you a lifetime.
(I am not affiliated with this website)
Wow.
I thought that the help from the people is what brought the masses.
So if the experience has to pay to give advice, I wonder what will happen to the level of advice.
I sure hope John Locke will be sticking around.
I bet the questions to him will tripple.
Good luck TCI, I may be outta-
Thanks for the lessons learned.
Your only talking about 50 dollars. Whats the big biggy deal about that?
.
The meal I ate last nite cost 3 times that much, and I dont need to tell you where it ended up this morning.
The production and upkeep are not free, but like i said the lessons are invaluable
[ Edited by WheelerDealer on Date 02/20/2004 ]
Just a tip the payment is a business expense. So keep your receipt, it is under ongoing education.
Lori
[addsig]
Stay realestatedork,
The sitemaster may soon allow real estate jokes to be posted in separate section of the site, labeled FREE STUFF.
Would this make you happy?
Wow. If you're going to balk at paying even the $25 rookie fee, how are going to part with $50 for a display ad, $900 for a carrier route mailing, or even a 10% earnest deposit to control a property?
You need to spend to earn. Trade nickels for dimes... dimes for quarters, quarters for $$$.
I've learned alot more from this site then most have learned from some guru's $1000 worth of rehashed, outdated hype. It's well worth the minute investment.
The up keep is what you are paying for. If you don't pay, there will be no site. Server space isn't free, programming is free, electricity isn't free, current technology isn't free.
TCI isn't traded on wall street, although that's not a bad idea, but the support currently comes from the members. Joel has bills.
Fees are fairly structured. No need for complain. [ Edited by omega1 on Date 02/20/2004 ]
Im not bulking, I did 3 deals this month.
My comment is is all the experience wont pay the money to give advice .
So then all that will be left is people selling stuff, and people with no experience giving advice.
And we all know some people give lots of advice that shouldnt.
where do I pay?
Buy something in the store instead. You get free subscription if you buy ... I forget, think it's over $50. I got good stuff on short sales. There are lots of great books & ebooks. Think of it as getting a free book with your subscription, or a free subscription with your book.
You got to be kidding.
What makes you think that the people giving advice arn't getting advice too?
Besides, The "experience" as you say might just be paying for the humor of some or even the friendship of others. Not to mention the contacts that can be made.
Let it go. Its okay.
WD>
[ Edited by WheelerDealer on Date 02/21/2004 ]
Realestate Dork. That is awesome!
Were your deals from farm packages,
pre-foreclosure, FSBO?
Share you success stories.
Best Riches,
Jeff Adam
[addsig]
a research company sends me foreclosure leads via e-mail,
I then send a letter, about 1/2 call back.
1/2 of those are possibles.
( Its kindve easy )
where do you find the research company?
Search the net under "foreclosures" with you city name in the search as well. Not all companys supply info to all areas. You hope to find a local company that will supply the N.O.D.'s
[addsig]
I think I see realestatedork's point. I guess he is asking that what is the incentive for the really experienced investors to pay the fee to join up. I am a beginner and I believe that the knowledge I gain from this site is well worth the $50 sign-up fee. The question (I believe) is whether this fee creates a barrier for attracting more experienced talent?
Maybe some gurus out there would be hesitant to pay a fee to dispense advice to us newbies. This might have the effect of skewing the membership of TCI.
Please don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. I am very grateful for all the advice, support and inspiration I get from the site. I am not just clear on how the business model works.
Keep up the good work people.
JS.
Where is the information about paying for using this site? I had never heard of it.
Since when did you have to pay to use TCI? I wouldn't care if it cost a $100 the information is invaluable.
Mitchell
Huh? We're supposed to pay something? Z
realestatedork
We started charging new customers Nov 1 2003. So if you have an account before this, it looks like you do, you have not been charged yet.
We are constructing our website for actual real estate investors that are actually out there wheeling and dealing. People want to use our site more than ever now, because of what we have done to the website within the past 2 months. (Look at last weeks poll.)
It is true you can use other FREE boards, but unlike free boards, you won't have the same quality of information as well as searchable information. And of course you have to put up with people spamming your email address, including the forum owner, advertisements in the forum, etc. etc. All the plesantries that come with a free board.
Here is the subscribe page:
http://www.thecreativeinvestor.com/SignUp-index.html
As with any business, we need to be making revenue to justify our programming costs. This past week we have turned all the pictures from TCIRealty (click on the properties tab) into dynamic reformated images that are stored in the database. In laymans terms, we are doing the same thing that www.Amazon.com does. Now, you do not have any file image constraint size, because we resize the image for you. This allows people who don't know how to resize an image (the majority) the ability to upload an image with their property listing.
Cheers.
Boy, I hope the Pro's on this site don't think they are loosing out by giving us newbies advice. This is by far the best site I have seen and in a short time have learned more than I could have hoped for. I gladly pay the small fee to use this site. I tried to run an e-commerce site and was amazed at how much overhead there is even when doing my own programming. Plus, I've even seen the pro's talking back and forth and learning from each other. 10,000 heads are better than one. If I ever become experienced and confident enough to give advice, I will gladly offer it freely in payment for what I have learned to date. Just know all you pro's out there that your gift of knowledge is greatly appreciated. Good Investing to all, Shaun
Does the research company provide this information to you ahead of the courthouse posting?
I am sure that all the moderators and members of a certain standard will not have to pay because their input is of value to the forums.
It will be dork, me and the masses who will pay.
Brenda
Maybe someone can answer the question about why some of us are paying and others are not. When I got to my 30 days I could no longer post replies or go to a lot of sites. It seems that there are a number of people here who have never paid a membership fee and are still posting for free. Shouldn't everyone have to be paying a membership if some of us are? Perhaps the moderators can explain this.
Quote:
On 2004-02-22 08:31, joel wrote:
realestatedork
We started charging new customers Nov 1 2003. So if you have an account before this, it looks like you do, you have not been charged yet.
Sandbahr,
here is your answer!
Sir
I seriously think that the truly helpful experienced investors , poeple like john do not think twice at the price to join, and those people will always be willing to help people like us even at a small,very small price.
And yes it is a tax deduction too, what more is there???
Call me a real estate dork, but I think the advice is well worth the pittance paid!! +
Realestate Dork,
Florida seems to be the best market at the moment for CRE. Which part of the Fl are you working at?
I've been searching the net for days looking for a site like this. I'm a beginner looking for sage advice. After reading MANY posts, I've determined that some of you folks are pretty damned smart, or good at what you do. Where do I pay for my subscription!!!!
Quote:
On 2004-02-24 09:44, jfreud wrote:
To post properties on their website would cost you $ but I believe it's like $24.95 a month for unlimited properties on the IMLS, and a Real Estate investors website.
<font size=-1>[ Edited by jfreud on Date 02/24/2004 ]</font>
$24.95 per month?? Maybe we are charging to little. That is what we charge per year.
Does everybody want to go to a monthly plan??
Hello all.
I'm with jfreud on this one. I do realize that revenue is needed to run, well, anything, however, having paying members doesn't necessarily increase the quality of information.
I also see that it would be easier to charge a membership fee as opposed to constantly working with advertisers, so it seems to depend on the commitment level to the site by the owners.
"Learn how to buy properties with no money down" for only $29.95 sounds like an infomercial, not a Real Estate forum board.
Good Luck in whatever direction the owners take this site.
I am within the ranks of people who don't know the details about the new subscription fees, but perhaps there could be an Investor Status level, that when reached, your subscription to the site is free. This would give us non-Guru's something to strive for and an incentive for the real Guru's to hang out.
[addsig]
Well, I will be brave enough to say that I won't be around if I have to pay to read and post here.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the site, but I'm not going to pay to give advice to people about rehabbing.
The one thing that I have noticed over time is that there is an amazing amount of poor or even outright wrong advice given here. Ask a very specific question and you may get no real answers, ask a newbie or generic question and you will get 50 answers. Out of those 50, 10 will be pretty good generic answers and 10 will be out right wrong and sometimes dangerous.
Just ask about a Nevada corp and see how many horrible answers you will get in favor of them.
I like this place, but I don't make money off of it, it is purely entertainment after you reach a certain level of experience in this field. It is a great place for general information for newbies and people in the beginning of their education, but I'm not going to learn anything from the 95% of the people here who are less experienced then I am.
I may start off here asking about something but if it is critical or very important, I'm going to end up talking to a lawyer, an accountant or a real person I know who has been in the business for years.
I've also been in the Internet business for years and I can gurantee that over time this site will lose the experienced members if they are charged to be here. You will get tons of newbies to sign up, but after time when you can't find an experienced inverstor with a search warrant, even the newbies will not see the value of asking each other questions.
Just my two cents Joel, but I have seen sites go this route before, the answer to your financial dreams isn't to charge for basic membership. I would upsell to an advanced membership that benefits the subscriber in other ways. But if you start charging for basic services you could run into trouble in the long run.
Quote:
On 2004-02-24 11:52, The-Rehabinator wrote:
Well, I will be brave enough to say that I won't be around if I have to pay to read and post here.
You can always use the free access. I think people are really missing the point here. We are charging not because of the forums, it is for the other services in addition to providing on top of the forum area.
Entertainment purposes?? I have fun at TCI, but we have always planned on making TCI a tool, not just to have fun at. It should be a place where you can work AND play, not just read forum messages.
If free unregulated boards is what you want, here is where you should start because USENET is not owned by anybody, thus no biased opinions, etc.
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=alt.invest.real-estate&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search
But like I said before. People who use FREE boards, 99% of the time will be spammed to death, because:
1. the owner is selling your information
2. It is non-regulated and your email address if for all to see- like the USENET link I mentioned above.
3. the forum board is insecure to spambots.
4. There are so many ads, you can't get good content out of them. Your there all day.
I on the other hand, want to protect peoples identity, protect them from spammers, in addition to keeping the functionality of conversation.
I am going to close this topic out. Because, the forum topic has it incorrect to begin with.
We will always have a free membership for users. But if people need to use the extras on our website, there is a charge, and shoot, any charge that people pay us is tax deductable.
[ Edited by joel on Date 02/24/2004 ]