Yes, I have attended the University.  I enrolled at the Regents tuition level for $16,000 and I felt that I earned my money's worth on the first week alone!  I know that seems hard to believe because we live in a world where you can't trust anything, but I have honestly been very impressed with this University.  Regardless of what you might hear from random sources like the article you quote, this company is the real deal!

First of all, they are not a multi-level marketing company.  They use Direct Sales, which is a more traditional form of marketing, yet has elements that could be considered multi-level marketing.  But that would be like saying a Keller Williams real estate agent uses multi-level marketing techniques to recruit and build a team.  Of course the do use elements that are like multi-level, but that doesn't make the company multi-level.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_marketing
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_selling

The next thing to consider is that the article that you link to has blatent innacuracies in it and is an example of yellow journalism.  For example look at this article quote:

"It takes money to learn to make money. Tuition for a weeklong course in Phoenix, Ariz., is $16,000. Students study how to leverage their equity to find money to buy properties. They also take classes in buying foreclosures and in the techniques of flipping a property. Classes are packed with as many as 2,500 students."

The problem with this quote is, everything!  Nouveau Riche does not sell tuitions by the week, and one week of classes is definitely not $16,000!  They offer 3 tuitions, ranging from $6,000-$16,000.  The Regents tuition is their most popular and is $16,000.  That tuition package gives you access to 12 weeks worth of classes, not 1 week!  That package can also be purchased by 2 people, lowering the investment to only $8000.  In an average week a student can take day classes Monday through Saturday, and can take some additional night classes as well.

Here is an example of a typical week at Nouveau Riche University:

• http://www.nruniversity.com/college/college_classes_dec07.htm

So as you can see from this breakdown, a typical week gives a student up to 12 hours of class time per day if they desire, for at least 4 days of the week, then another 2 days they can take up to 8 hours.  So they have access up to 64 hours of class time per week per partner!  They have full control over their own schedules and can choose classes they want, and can choose to attend for one day or one week, it is really up to them. 

So lets do some quick math to see what value someone would get from a Regents Tuition Package at the University.

12 weeks of school over a 2 year period.  64 hours per week x 12 weeks = 768 hours of potential in-class time x 2 people is 1536 total in-class hours for a Regents Tuition.  $16,000 divided by 1536 = $10.42/hr of class time.

So for $10 per hour is the quality of education really any good?  Absolutely!  The classes are taught by actual real estate investors who are currently practicing and having success at the topic they are teaching on.  There is no upselling of any kind allowed at the college and the course curriculum was designed using ISD (Instructional Systems Design) so yes it is very high quality.

But on top of being able to attend classes, students also have access to several other benefits along with their tuitions:

• Access to over 20 online classes that have been recorded and put in streaming video for Regent students.  You get unlimited access to these classes for the entire 2 years and they don't use up any credits.  They are also adding new classes all the time.  Here is a quick example of they system they use:  http://roicapitalgroup.com/Flash/ShortDemo/Shortdemo2.html (I am not endorsing the owners of this site, I simply found this page, and it is a good sample)
• Access to a built-in power team, which every real estate investor should put together at some point.  This includes an accounting firm, a business entity set-up company, a credit restoration company, and an investor mortgage company.
• Access to an exclusive portal that features investment properties for sale, with a team of people to assist in finding tenants, managing the property, taking care of repairs, etc.  This helps investors that want to buy property without the hassles of landlording or without as big of a time commitment.
• Access to over 3000 students to network with at every college.  This is where some of the true value is because networking is what real estate is all about, and there are a whole range of investors at each college, so if you are looking for a money partner, or a credit partner, or a wholesaler, or a buyer, etc, they can all be found there.  Pretty cool!

And I could go on and on.  The reality is that this company is destined for some pretty big things, and it is unfortunate that it is getting bad press.  I have been with the company now for over a year and I have not yet met one single person that has had a bad college experience!  But some people will post their opinions on the internet that they don't think the college is any good, and they likely haven't been.  I would challenge anyone reading this to find a student that attends this December college that has a bad experience.  And even if you found one, just the fact that it was so hard to find one should tell you something.  I could go to almost any school in America and find unhappy students a lot easier than I could with Nouveau Riche.  That is a huge plus for this company.

The last thing I would like to cover is that many people feel like you could save that tuition by going out and getting some books and getting some hands-on experience.  But the funny thing is that many of the students at the college had done exactly that, and that is why they enrolled with NRU!  Because they got their experience at the "School of Hard Knocks" and many times the tuition is much higher there!  The problem is that the average person really needs more than just a book from a bookstore on investing, or some little 2 day seminar.  And they wouldn't even know where to get started in finding the right book.  Before attending NRU I read several books on investing, and dabbled around a little, and watch some friends make a fortune, while others lost a fortune.  I was forming some good experience.  But that education is nothing compared to the education that I have received from NRU.

I highly endorse this university to anyone who is seriously looking at an opportunity to create wealth through real estate investing and business ownership.  And what do I have to gain from this comment?  Nothing.  There is no email to contact me, and my name is left anonymous.  I am simply a student who has actually experienced the college, which is exactly who you wanted to hear from.  Hopefully my comment has helped.

 I am enrolled in the curriculum with NRU. This is my 2nd college.

 So far, completely unimpressed.

 I have an MBA in Accounting, BS in Finance, 15 years of experience in Corporate America with large companies in NY and in LA and San Francisco ( where I currently live)

 I went in as a tuition partner with my partner. We own several rental properties so RE Investing is not new to us.

My hoenst opinion is that I think these classes can be helpful, however, I think that I could have gotten the same education for ALOT less. ALOT less.

Why are these people running a school instead of selling real estate?  That is a very very simple answer. Why work hard for your money when you can sit back and rake it in.

 Jim Piccolo has found a gold mine here. Everyone wants to make money in real estate. He has pooled together industry experts and created a "university"  Let me tell you this is FAR FAR from University level classes. 

 Think of NRU as a series of 1 day seminars.. the Cliff Notes version to RE investing.  Thats the reason that with that $16K you get to attend multiple "colleges" ie you can take the seminars over and over. You will have to as the material is so thin that it is going to take you time to understand how you can do anything with any of this stuff.

 The way that many of the top NRU people have made money is NOT through RE investing. It is through Marketing, ie. bringing new students in the fray.

The pitch is that you can use the Marketing dollars you earn to invest in Real Estate. And the ones making all the money are the kinda slick used car predators you are imagining. Slick and polished looking, they have been groomed to sell the "University"

 I could kick my partner for signing us up for this curriculum. Anyone serious about investing in Real Estate should join local RE investing clubs, or find a RE investor and ask to be mentored. Even offer the mentor something..work for free.... to learn about RE investing.

Most of those teaching the classes did NOT attend NRU.  They learned through alternative means. If they did, why cant you!

 So here we are out of pocket $16K. We are committed to investing in RE, but I have little if no confidence that we will do it from what we learn at NRU. NRU is just a push to get us in to it. If you think of that way, and you have $16K to give to Jim Piccolo then by all means do it.

PS Look up Piccolos past. Very colorful. Is this the type of person you should "edify" as a leader????

Not my "leader" Just a means to an end.

Jason,

Thank you for your accurate depiction of NRU.  NRU is a clever but dangerous scam.  These people are charging their so called students $20,000 to be brainwashed into liquidating 401k and retirement savings to buy real estate in a declining market.  They prey on people that do not know anything about investing.  Per the US Dept of Education the school is not accredited as they claim they are.  This is a slick ponzi, pyramid scheme where you make money of the people that you bring in below you.  Tell everyone you know to beware of these sharks!

Proceed with Caution!

As a preface, I joined NRU by purchasing the “Regent’s” package, I went to the "college", I tried to recruit, I have analyzed the Investor's Concierge deals, I went to the briefings, I have heard the likes of Piccolo, Snyder, Cheri Tree, Kecia and all the other NRU hacks speak, and I’ve met and talked to many NRU "students".  So please don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.  Here is my assessment of NRU.  I have tried my best to be fair.  For those of you familiar with NRU, this outline follows the “EPIC” presentation some of you may have been subject to.

The Company

1. Piccolo and Bob "the General" Snyder, the founders of NRU, have MARKETING backgrounds.  Look it up.  They have no prior experience with real estate investing before NRU.

1. As a consequence of Number 1, NRU is primarily a MARKETING business.  You can call it whatever you want, direct marketing, MLM, a pyramid scheme, a ponzi scheme, there may not be a perfect term, but it contains aspects of all of these concepts.

1. Real estate investing and education is an ancillary part of NRU.  It is the "product" that they sell, but it might as well be long-distance phone plans, an internet web-based business, vitamins, or make-up. 

1. NRU's success is a direct product of the real estate mania this country has experienced over the past 7 years, not anything inherently great about the company’s products or services.

The “Education”

1. For $16,000, you really don’t get very much.  You receive a certain number of “college” credits that expire after two years, but the catch is that you have to fly to Arizona to use them and you can only do that four times a year for a one-week period each time.  There is an on-line option, but it is sub-par for a variety of reasons.

1. The courses are amateur hour and taught in seminar-fashion.  They may dazzle people who don’t have a college degree, but will offer little to those who are generally versed in basic real estate and financial concepts.  The educational materials are photocopied, hand-bound booklets, sometimes just an outline of the power point presentation.  The instructors appear to be knowledgeable in their field, but they are mainly interested in consulting fees and fees for other services that they offer to NRU members (not altruism as many NRU shills would like you to believe).

1. NRU does not “teach” you anything you can’t learn by spending a few dollars on Amazon.com.  There are no secret tips to learn that haven’t been published in the hundreds of real estate books you can buy on your own. 

1. The “education” is primarily a vehicle for the direct marketing aspect of NRU, just as Investor’s Concierge is there to give members credibility when they market the course.  The Concierge, however, is also another mechanism by which NRU extracts additional money from its students.  More on this later.

Real Estate as an Investment Class

1. In marketing the tuition, a great deal of emphasis is placed on how real estate can make you rich.  There is little or no information on how risky investing in real estate can be.  At the “briefings” (the 2-hour presentation designed to lure new members), the presenter will talk a lot about how great real estate is because of the availability of leverage and certain tax benefits.  At several briefings I went to, the presenter would literally make the representation that real estate prices only go up.  Finally, the presenter will talk about how terrible it is to work for a corporation and how useless a college education is (ala Robert Kiyosaki).  This usually manifests itself in the form of derisive acronyms, such as JOB, which stands for “Just Over Broke”, or how only NRU can give you an MBA that’s worth anything, a “Massive Bank Account” (crowd usually goes wild here).

1. NRU never mentions the special risks inherent in residential real estate investing, such as problem tenants, financing and interest rate risk, structural and environmental risks associated with housing, the cost of maintenance, the prospect of asset depreciation or declining rents, and the risk of litigation including from eviction and foreclosure.  Bottom line, investing in residential real estate is very risky and comes with a host of hazards you would not find in other asset classes.  NRU discounts all of this and presents real estate as a perpetual money tree. 

1. We will likely never experience again in our lifetimes the type of appreciation in residential real estate that we have seen these past few years.  There are several reasons that this is very likely to be the case: reversion to the mean, unsustainable public/private debt burdens, massive transfer of wealth to developing nations, slowing economic growth, an aging population, greater regulation in the financial sector, etc.

1. Historically, residential real estate prices have appreciated at the rate of inflation.

1. Real estate, like any other asset class, carries risks that are commensurate with the returns you are likely to generate.  For example, leverage is great in good times, but people are quickly learning how easy it is for your equity to get wiped out a result of relatively small declines in home prices. 

1. Investor Concierge deals are generally market-rate deals, but they are advertised to NRU students as amazing deals that generate positive cash flow.  There are other sites that break this down, but generally speaking, the appraisals are usually 2-3 pages long and contain nothing more than a broker's opinion of value, the financing is almost always interest only or neg-am, the rents are inflated, and the only way you get "positive cash flow" is if you include certain seller incentives like pre-paid HOA or guaranteed rent, most of which will expire within 2 years.  Additionally, maintenance and vacancy will almost immediately eat away at the $100 of positive cash-flow a month you get.  NRU members hate talking about the details of the Investor Concierge deals. 

1. Typically, there are only 15-20 available properties on the Concierge at any given time, so the pickins are slim.  NRU encourages you to “reserve” a property you like as soon as you see it online, because it could get snatched up by someone else unless you do.  The non-refundable fee for reserving a property is $350. 

1. Investor Concierge deals are mainly located in historically depressed or undeveloped, sub-urban or rural real estate markets, you will generally not find properties on the system in established, urban markets.  These properties are likely to experience declines in this market and will not likely appreciate much at all when the economy recovers.

1. Anyone who has purchased a deal off of Investor’s Concierge over the last two years has either lost all of their equity or is underwater.  This is a terrifying prospect for many people in NRU because at the briefings, many of them go up to the front and brag about how they have bought 5, 10, 15 or even 20 properties over the past few months.  Many of these people are going to have to walk away from their homes in the coming years, which will destroy their credit and eat up any ponzi money they made from the marketing.

The Marketing

1. The real estate investing component of NRU is used mainly to support the primary business of the company which is selling tuition packages.  There are three options which cost different amounts, but most people are pressured to purchase the “Regent’s” packing together with the “Encyclopedia”, which total almost $20,000.  There are certain commission and tuition-related perks you get for buying the most expensive package.

1. The commission system is what really drives NRU.  NRU members can get a 50% commission for each package they sell, so sometimes that amounts to nearly $10,000 a pop, and there is an added wrinkle that causes that number to multiply very quickly if people you sign up also, in turn, sign up additional students.  The mathematics make the commission structure extremely lucrative IF YOU ARE GOOD AT SALES.  This is hook that gets most people to fork over the money.

1. Most people are unsuccessful at selling tuition packages.  It’s akin to trying to sell a used car, except you would probably get more value from a junker than the “education” that NRU offers.  It’s obvious why the “education” NRU offers is not worth $20,000, most of that needs to go subsidize the commission system, which is needed to lubricate the entire NRU machinery. 

1. The commission system places a lot of pressure on NRU members to sell, sell, sell.  This is how all the top “producers” have made most of their money.  This also creates a massive conflict of interest.  More on this later.

1. The direct marketing aspect of NRU preys on the greed and naiveté of all sorts of people, but mainly lower-middle class individuals, young people just starting out, and real estate agents/brokers, many of whom don’t have a lot of education and work crappy jobs that they aren’t happy with. 

1. NRU is tied in with the likes of Robert Kiyosaki and “The Secret”.  I’m not going to bore you with the analysis, but try Google and you will find plenty of critiques.

Conflicts of Interest

1. NRU generates tremendous income directly from its students.  They make money not only from the tuition, but also from marketing materials and services, credit services, mortgage brokerage services, accounting and legal services, special seminars, Investor Concierge transactions, all of which cost extra, and they’re not cheap.  You also have to pay for lodging and the plane ticket to get to the college.  All of the NRU instructors also offer consulting deals and other professional services, which also cost extra.  The $16,000 for the Regent’s tuition only buys you “college” credits, you get NOTHING ELSE.  You even have to buy the forms and brochures you need to sign up people for NRU.  I take that back, you do get a tote bag, but it looks ridiculous. 

1. NRU members are supposed to be “mentors” to the new members who they sign up, but what they really want from you is for you to sell the tuition to others, because they will get a cut of the first few sales you make.  There is a huge conflict of interest here because there is a big incentive for NRU members to sell the tuition, irrespective of the quality of the product or the unique situation of people to whom they are marketing.

1. NRU encourages you to sell to friends and family, which destroys relationships when people are dissatisfied or feel cheated, which is often the case.

1. The most distasteful defense of NRU to me is that “it’s not for everyone, but it worked for me”.  It may be that there are some people who are successful and make lots of money in NRU, but the system cannot support a situation where most of the people in NRU make tons of money.  This is the inherent, mathematical limitations of these types of marketing structures.  I’m sure someone smarter than me can prove this.  Likewise, the real estate market cannot support most people in NRU making money in residential real estate investing.  Case in point is the short sale strategy, which NRU shills tout as the way to make money in a down market.  Well, there is so much competition in short sales right now, and even more with each “college” I suppose, that short sale investors are bidding up pre-foreclosures pretty much to market.  These fundamental concepts virtually guaranty that only a small minority of NRU members will make any money either from the marketing or the real estate investing, and REQUIRE everyone else to fail in order for the system to sustain itself.  This is the biggest conflict of interest of them all and lends to NRU’s reputation as a “scam”.

Conclusion

NRU is a marketing business that encourages and monetarily incentivizes its members to use high-pressure sales tactics to sell a highly expensive real estate “education” package with questionable value to unsophisticated people with the lure of quick money and unlimited riches in real estate.  Success in NRU is highly dependent on (1) a booming real estate market and/or (2) a unique talent in sales and marketing.  What makes NRU so insidious is that it plays on the fear and greed of ordinary people, often friends and family, most of whom will go bankrupt by following NRU investment strategies during a severe and sustained real estate down turn such as the one we are experiencing now, and most of whom will fail in selling the tuition package because they lack the sales and marketing expertise, which is further exacerbated by a declining real estate market.  Taken as whole, NRU may be perfectly legal, but many people will feel like they were cheated out of thousands of dollars by someone they trusted.  If after reading this, you are still interested then by all means sign up.  But just be prepared to live with it if at some point you find yourself either financially bankrupt, morally bankrupt, or even worse, both.

Epilogue

Finally, you’re not going to see a whole lot of posts like this from people who have joined NRU.  Most are very disillusioned at the loss of thousands of dollars and don’t even want to give it another thought.  The rest are out searching for marks.  I can only hope that NRU won’t survive this bear market in housing, and if this post can hasten its demise, so much the better.  I don’t blame the person who signed me up, he incidentally has had to find a full-time job now since NRU is apparently not doing it for him.  I walked into this with my eyes wide open, which shows you how greed can overcome any good judgment you may think you have.  But I am thankful that I didn’t end up dragging anyone else into this apart from a good friend as my partner in this scheme, but with whom, as a result of NRU, am no longer on speaking terms.  So for all of you NRU shills out there who still think you are doing God’s work, why don’t you try calling each and every person you have signed up and ask them exactly what they think about NRU.  I think you will find that my experience is not so unique.  If you can keep on selling after that, well then, good luck to you.

Hello everyone, well where should i start? Yes I paid the 16k for NR's real estate investing. For 1 yr, i  tried marketing the product but had no results. But it wasnt' just me, it's 95% of the people who join. Very few people have results and the ones that do tend to inflate the numbers to get people dreaming. Go to a meeting, see how many people are "certified" and how many people are actually making money. It will disguste you. With the NR meetings, all they talk about is money, money, money, all the money that the leaders are making, (inflated numbers) that make people live in a dream. They talk about what they do with their money and of coarse that makes everyone dream about their own wants. They have Jim Piccolo in a big pedastel like if he was god.  But what did he do? If you notice it's business all the way around for him. In almost all the classes, the instuctors offer their services (which are not free!) and the Save Our Score, NR mortgage, #1 Accountants, those are all Piccolo's businesses. Has NR changed my life? Yes, I am a young person who is more than 450,000 dollars in debt because of NR. With their trainings that they have, they make you believe that you will become a millionaire and that everyone deserves to to to NR (brainwash) and so i took out a student loan for the tuition, then two more students loans for business expenses with NR and to survive (NR taught me how to take out a student loan without going to a REAL university) Is that even legal? I bought two properties, but none of their education worked, not because i don't understand, but because you really don't know until you experience things. To be continued...

NR Drop Out:  It's encouraging to see more people speak out about this evil institution.  I KNOW there are tons of people out there who feel exactly like you and me.  Please google other more frequently trafficked blogs and post your story.  People need to know this information.

Hello Ulises,

I agree with Gary in that NR is not for everyone. I have been a real estate appraiser for the past 14 years. I saw the NR briefing a few months ago and decided to join that day; not for the marketing, but to learn how to invest in real estate. As a person with an extensive background in analyzing markets, property valuation and real estate in general, I immediately saw the value in NR. My business partner has been extremely successful doing fix and flips in an upscale area of Los Angeles; is an RE agent, contractor, as well as a former home inspector. Together we have more than 30 yrs. experience in different areas of real estate, but we both realize we don't know it all. There is so much more to real estate investing than meets the eye. We have been to 2 colleges (two weeks total) and have learned so much in just that short about of time. 

I laugh when I hear people say it is a scam....as I would be the first one to post negatively if I were  scammed...but you must work the info you receive in the classrooms in order to be successful. We are currently mentoring with the instructor of the "Short Sales" class..and no he did not charge us money upfront, but he will receive a percentage of the profit, to which I say fine. I have mentored countless appraisal trainees and did so for a percentage. Our goal is to have 10 properties under contract in the next 30 days.

The previous posts that say "the best way is to just go out and do it" well we not talking about going jogging, we are talking about investing in real estate- I believe that knowledge is key. Sure you can go buy a book, but I believe I can re-coop my tuition in one deal with the proper education.  Now there are people who know enough about investing to be successful and there are those that know enough to be dangerous, I am in the process of being the former. There are certainly worse ways to spend your commission check; the school of hard knocks is much more expensive.

Best of luck to you!

Tina Burke, Long Beach CA

Hey guys, the NRU trolls are at it again.  You will see this occur every single time a negative post about NRU appears on the internet.  Please be forewarned, none of them are able to refute any of my very reasoned and cogent arguments about how NRU is a scam.  Again, I freely admit that there are people who are very successful in NRU, on both the investing and marketing side.  BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT.  The point is that the "education" is simply not worth $20,000.  Local real estate clubs are FREE.  The educational materials that NRU touts can be purchased for less than $100 at Amazon.com.

Everything these people tell you are for the SOLE purpose of getting you to sign up so that they can collect $10k in commissions.  THEY WILL TELL YOU ANYTHING TO GET YOU TO JOIN.  They will tell you they signed up their 13 year old son, their 80 year old grandma.  They will tell you that they drive a Ferrari, they will tell you they have 10 beach homes, they will tell you they quit their job and own a yatch now, THEY WILL TELL YOU ANYTHING YOU NEED TO HEAR TO GET YOUR MONEY.  That is what is so insidious about NRU, when you wave the possibility of thousands of dollars in commissions to random people on the street, how do you think they will react?  Let's be honest here folks, you can't believe ANYTHING these people say. 

All of these trolls tell you that "NRU is not for everyone", but just go to one of their rallies, and you will get the hard sell.  Apparently, it is for everyone when there is $10k in it for the guys signing you up.  Once you sign up and can't get your money back, oh, well it's not for everyone and the reason you failed is because you are a loser.  WTF, there is a special place in hell for you guys, really.

Nice one Gary, but I still haven't heard a real rebuttal from you.

Don't worry, I'm planning on sticking around as long as people like you are out there looking for marks, and I'm willing to work weekends and holidays to do it too.  So I guess that makes me a saint.  I don't need to talk everyone out of it, but call me naive if I still think that good 'ol fashoined reasoned argument can still win the day for most people.  BTW, my mother of all posts has already been picked up by lots of folks, I've seen it referenced on real estate forums and I've actually received many more positive responses than negative ones from NRU trolls like you.  I think it is because at the end of the day, no one has been able to refute my points and lame retorts like the one you just made look pretty pathetic to most intelligent people.

So I suppose what you say with irony, I embrace with awe.  Yes, the internet has revolutionized our ability to express ourselves, and in the marketplace of ideas, it provides a new forum, a truly democratic forum, for all of us to bring our arguments and our positions to the table, naked for all the world to see and judge for themselves.

It doesn't matter who I am Gary!  Unlike yourself, I'm not selling anything remember!  All that matters is the discourse.  I can't believe that you can say with a straight face that you have a stronger position when you can't bring yourself to properly respond to what you call "drivel".  If what I've given you is "drivel", what would you call what NRU dishes at its pep rallies?  I'm going to restrain myself now for fear of offending anyone with the very long list of expletives that are on the tip of my tongue.

Oh, Dean... First of all, I doubt you ever bought anything from Nouveau Riche. You sound like you work for some hack guru who's threatened by the reeal education provided by Nouveau Riche. I'm sure you did your research by attended one of the hundreds of free events and asking lots of questions so you could pretend you bought something and attended the college, but it's obvious from your comments that you've never been to our college. (If you've been to the Nouveau Riche college, prove it. A copy of your badge would be fine.)

So, you've been copying and pasting your same drivel on blog after blog, and getting your cronies to comment on it. "Wow! You're so eloquent!" "Thanks for finally revealing the hidden truth THEY won't talk about!" What a load of crap. So, let's hit it line for line, like you wanted:

The Company

1. Bob Snyder and Jim Piccolo both started investing in real estate over 10 years ago, and Nouveau Riche is only 5 years old. Bob's background was as a sales executive for a printing company. Jim became a multi-millionaire with his truck modification business. They both invested in real estate, both residential and commercial, while starting several businesses and ultimately founding Nouveau Riche. (When they originally founded Nouveau Riche in 2003, they used gurus who gave workshops and bootcamps and then upsold, upsold, upsold. So few students actually bought real estate (about 15% did, about 85% didn't, which was still dramatically better than the 95% failure rate of almost all gurus) that they fired all the gurus (including Robert Allen, Robert Kiyosaki, Dolf De Roos, etc), brought in a PHD in Education and setup the same college format as any major university. (The last polling showed after implementing the college format showed almost the opposite results: 86% bought real estate, 14% hadn't.)
   

1. The Marketing and the Education are completely seperate, but go well together. One doesn't have to buy the Education to sell. One does have to sell the Education to buy it.
   

1. The product that the marketers use is Real Estate Investing education (and now Business Administration education), it's true; as stated above, however, one isn't required to sell it if they buy it, or vice versa. And, further, one can make money just by using the product, without selling it. Not so with all the other products you mentioned.

1. Sure. That's a matter of opinion. If that were true, Nouveau Riche should be on the downturn given the downturn in the Real Estate market; attendance at the college is at an all-time high.
   

The “Education”

1. I'm just not sure what you're comparing Nouveau Riche to for a "not much" measurement. If you're comparing it to the "guru" programs, the gurus cost much more than this for only a very specific level of knowledge. For example, Robert Allen has CD's and DVD's, which he upsells to workshops, which upsell to boot camps, which upsells to coaching and mentoring to learn ONLY about foreclosures. The total cost for learning to do JUST foreclosures from Robert Allen is around $56,000. At Nouveau Riche, one uses his credit hours for whatever classes fit for him. He could learn how to do foreclosures (including all paperwork, documentation, real examples, etc) from someone doing them now, as well as learning Lease Options, Subject-To's, Wholesaling, Short Sales, Buy And Hold, Multi-Family Dwellings, Tax Auctions, Legal Strategies, Retirement Planning, etc. Having a broad range of knowledge allows the Nouveau Riche-educated investor to adapt to the changing market, and at a much lower cost than anything else out there, especially given that the tuition counts for 2 people, one can repeat classes for FREE, one gets coaching for FREE, and access to the online library of classes for FREE.   You describe the online option as "sub par". Par is a golf term meaning "average" or "at an expected level", so you're saying Nouveau Riche's classes are below the level offered by others. Well, let's compare. First of all, no guru that I know of offers online classes. Period. So, that is much above "par" for that industry. Online classes for traditional universities are usually a series of slide shows and a book to read, students often have to be online during certain times, and often students have to physically visit the school for some parts of class. With Nouveau Riche, students see streaming video from the actual class at the college with all of the instructors slides and the workbook. They can start, stop, fast forward, or repeat the classes at their liesure. And they can even take classes online that they haven't taken in person, all included for FREE with their tution. It seems quite a bit "above par" (like maybe an eagle? hole-in-one?), but I'll leave it to you to decide.
   

1. Sorry, Dean. This one was OBVIOUS that you've never taken a class. Classes are taught in (wait for it...) CLASSROOM fassion. There are pre-tests. There are quizzes. There are tests. Some students pass. Some students fail. And upselling or selling of any kind is STRICTLY PROHIBITED in class. Every student is given a teacher evaluation at the end of class. If any selling is reported by students or the other staff that is monitoring and recording every class, the instructor is fired. Upselling may be a staple of real estate seminars, but Nouveau Riche realizes it's not a profitable part of any real education.

1. The same might be said of medicine. Why do all those suckers pay for degrees in neuroscience when they can just read books about how the brain works? As any logical person knows, the information is constantly changing and it's easier to learn from someone who knows the field of study, preferably someone who actually has working experience. All the education at Nouveau Riche is taught by people who are successfully doing exactly what they teach RIGHT NOW.

1. Right, they sell the education.

Real Estate as an Investment Class

1. The presentations are designed for marketing, i.e. selling, the marketing opportunity and they also talk about the product, i.e. the education. If you were invited under some other pretense, then you were misinformed. (All of the marketers are independent, so some misinformation from a handful of people is possible. Corporate corrects this as much as possible, but it can still happen.) ALL of the crazy numbers used in Nouveau Riche presentations come from the US Government (much from the Department of Health and Human Services, as they track employment and income statistics) or from the Board of Realtors (as they track real estate sales). Historically, real estate does go up. It goes through ups and downs, but is on average on the incline. (The average yearly appreciation nationwide is 6.34%, from what has been tracked for the last 40 years by the Board of Realtors. Only about 0.21% of employees ever become wealthy, and the majority of traditional education is geared towards getting a job. Around 90% of Americans are living below the poverty level at age 65. To live on $3000/mo for 20 years, i.e. from age 65 to 85, takes about $1,000,000. The problem isn't that Nouveau Riche's numbers are off or inaccurate. The problem is that the majority of Americans don't have the financial education to understand why everyone is so broke or that doing the "same old thing" of "going to school, get a good job" is outdated by over 40 years.

1. The initial video of Jim Piccolo that is shown at the beginning of almost every presentation talks specifically about the risks involved. That there is risk involved with real estate investing, but education helps minimize the risk. The presentation slides have several disclaimers throughout them talking about the risks. Every presenter talks about the risks involved. And then EVERY SINGLE CLASS has a breakdown at the beginning of the specific risks and assets required for that particular strategy which are reviewed and the students tested on. I guess you must have been sleeping, or maybe you missed it when you weren't there.

1. You must be a kid. Anyone older than 40 can remember similar booms and busts.

1. The Investor Concierge is designed for those who don't want to take the time to find their own properties. Users are able to "Click a mouse, Buy a house" so to speak. It's possible to find cheaper deals buying at wholesale. They are NOT, however, even close to full-market value. There are always 2 independent appraisals or BPO's. Other being offered for 65-80% FMV, none of the properties are any one thing. Each loan is customized to the individual buyer. The Investor Concierge uses over 3000 financing options and specialize in non-owner occupied, as opposed to the 2-3 options a typical loan officer has at their disposal. The majority of their loans are regular loans with modest interet rates. The IC also offers to manage the properties, so the claim that "the rents are out of control" is really just a matter of poor education. Noone wins if the rent is too high, the IC, the owner, or the renter. They've sold over 1100 properties and counting to investors, with an average of 24% cash-on-cash return. If they were bad deals, people wouldn't keep coming back.

1. Their inventory varies, but is usually around the 100 or so mark. Sometimes much more, sometimes less. The properties always go very quickly, which is part of why they're able to get such excellent pricing on them. The fee ensures that prospective buyers are more serious, and is just good business.

1. What? Yeah, like Atlanta, Utah, Colorado... The properties are in major cities in excellent areas, and are almost always brand-new. That's kind of the point.

1. And another straight lie. I guess you should've taken the Market Analysis class, or just done a little research of appreciation and rental rates in the areas the Investor Concierge uses. Do you even know what a Ponzi scheme is? Here's a tip: MAN UP! Do some research. Check people out before you do business with them. (Real Estate 101?) If you want proof of what someone claims, ask them for their HUD1's, have them show you their marketing sales. I guarantee people can back up their claims. (Not being able to do so is a serious violation that will likely get them banned for life.)

The Marketing

1. OK. Yes, they market the education primarily through group presentations. Yes, they offer incentives for buying more of their products, which is just smart business. (Just like a tire store offering a discount for 4 tires.) The commission structure isn't an MLM, a ponzi, or a pyramid. The basic structure is called an Australian 2-up system, and is similar to what the insurance industry uses. One gets started, buys in for incentives or doesn't buy in and just markets; then she gets plugged into a system with her mentor's help, gives away her first couple sales, and then she makes the commission. The commssion in this case is 50% or more. One then helps her people get certified by connecting with the system until they get cerfitified and move off on their own and so on. Nouveau Riche isn't affiliated with Robert Kiyosaki or the Secret. (As mentioned above they used to hire Robert Kiyosaki several years ago when they were seminar-based company, but they stopped using him after going to a college format.) No product purchase is required to market. Marketting is also not required in order to purchase a product. There is no illusion that sales and marketing doesn't take work. It's stated multiple times that this is going to take work. It's not necessarily easy, but it is very simple. If you got the impression that you would buy your education and the marketing would just fall in your lap, then you weren't paying attention. 

Conflicts of Interest

1. That's a bit of a mixed bag, but, again, the Marketing and the Education are seperate. From the Education side, of course one is responsible for his own expenses, just like any college. Student loan options are available to offset those expenses, but they aren't any schools responsibility. There are a ton of extras that come with the Regents package, or any of the packages for that matter. With the Investor Concierge, one is purchasing properties and the costs are the similar or better than when purchasing property from a normal bank process. The properties themselves, however, are much cheaper than FMV. Then there's the Marketing side. One can pay $75 get setup as an independent contractor with Nouveau Riche. That is much cheaper than a traditional business, where one would have the costs of office space, franchising fees, employees, etc. The tote comes with forms and everything required to get started. Nouveau Riche provides products to assist marketers if they choose to use them, but there are no additional costs required beyond the $75 licensing fee. One just plugs people into the system and events. The sign-up process is all online, including the signature, so no need for additional forms. 

1. Again, from the marketing side they just plug people into the system. And increasing sales, well, is the way business works. "If you're not growing, you're dying."

1. Word-of-mouth is the most powerful marketing technique, but yes, some people get over zealous and don't set the proper expectation when talking to friends or family. The big things marketers sometimes don't do are making sure the person is looking either to start a business or to start investing in real estate, they don't do a 1-on-1 before the group presentation to go over the details, they don't mention that it's a group presentation, and don't mention that there's a cost to start the business or purchase the education. A lot of marketers could really stand to tone it down and treat it like a business.
   

1. Well, it's just simple math. There's plenty to go around, both with Real Estate and Marketing. There's about 7000 or so people who've purchased the education, and probably 2500 or so people marketing it, in a country with over 200 million people. There are still 1000's or foreclosures that happen each month that could've been prevented by short sales or subject-to's or something similar. There would still be plenty of opportunity if Nouveau Riche was 10 times larger.

Conclusion

All I can say is, "Do your research." And I don't mean Google. You can find a negative opinion on just about anything. The negative will often give you an skewed opinion, and is often put there by scared competition. Nouveau Riche offers an opportunity for those who are looking for more and are willing to work to get it. Buying the education or paying to market doesn't guarantee your success; only your action can do that.

Epilogue

With this level of energy dumped into hate, I imagine relationship problems are frequent in your life. Go in with the right expectation. If you're better suited to taking orders rather than giving them, then this probably isn't the right move for you. I also recommend keeping your current job, if applicable, until you're actually making money. If you can't cut it part time, being full time won't be any better. Plug into the system and take the simple steps that the leader recommend. Doing nothing will yield just that. 

Nouveau Riche offers the best education in real estate investing. Period. There's nothing like it.

If you're looking to start a business or work for yourself, the Marketing side of Nouveau Riche is great if you're willing to put the time and effort into it. Expect at least 6 months without pay. Maybe even longer. There are often those who do it sooner, but don't get your hopes up. Just stick with it. When the pay comes it's absolutely phenomenal.

Go to an Intensive to sample the education. Go to some of the Marketing meetings to get a feel for what it's all about. It may be for you, it may not be, but get the facts and get your questions answered before you decide either way.

For the last five years I was a real estate Broker.  I studied real estate investing intensively, reading every book I could find, buying courses, attending seminars, etc.  What I found was that after all of this education, I still didn't own any rental property. 

While researching to put together a class for my real estate agents, I came across NRU.  I was impressed by the way they've structured their educational products.  I have two bachelor's degrees and an MBA, so I understand their ISD method of teaching.

Nonetheless, I didn't have $16,000 to spend on further education, so I opted to come in as a sales associate, with only a $75 investment.  My thought is to test the claim that I can earn money toward my deals while learning what they teach.

I just enrolled today, so I'll follow up later with my results.  I plan to give them a fair shake. I'll follow the system they teach me to the letter.  I hope to shed light on why some people do well and others don't, but I plan to start from the ground floor.

Full response to "Dean."

Dean's post is full of misinformation and an obvious bias that he makes no attempt to hide.

It truly sounds as though he gathered as much free-floating information as he could so that he might make it sound as though he has first-hand experience.  The attempt is to give the nonsense that follows some sort of credence.

I will begin a full response to his post, responding to each one of the numbers individually...however, blogger.com will now only allow 4,096 characters per post.

I will post as much as I can here, but for the full response you may visit http://tinyurl.com/q4sq7p

(if you wish to view a preview of the link and the full URL it can be seen on tinyurl.com at http://preview.tinyurl.com/q4sq7p)

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The Company

1. Piccolo and Bob 'the General' Snyder, the founders of NRU, have MARKETING backgrounds. Look it up. They have no prior experience with real estate investing before NRU.

--Even if this IS true,  a) I don’t know how anyone could possibly “look up” what sort of personal experience any individual has with something as broad as real estate investing…Can you tell me where one might find this information?  Perhaps it would be more readily available for a more well-known businessman.  Exactly what experience does Bill Gates have with RE investing?  How about Rupert Murdoch?  Where is this information published? 

b) Is it possible that that is a reason neither one of them teaches a single class?  Neither individual is listed anywhere as an instructor of any specific course in the course catalogue.

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2. As a consequence of Number 1, NRU is primarily a MARKETING business. You can call it whatever you want, direct marketing, MLM, a pyramid scheme, a ponzi scheme, there may not be a perfect term, but it contains aspects of all of these concepts.

--Great comment.   Spoken like a true lawyer.  With that last sentence fragment you get to say almost anything you want before it, and by the end of the statement alleviate yourself from all claims of libel or falsities.  You could say the very same thing about almost any business.  Depending on how far you’re willing to stretch your claims, you could even say nonprofit organizations "contain aspects" of direct marketing, MLM, a pyramid scheme and a Ponzi scheme...The truth is, Nouveau Riche, like MOST other business is not any of those, other than maybe direct-to-consumer marketing.

First of all, there is nothing wrong, immoral or illegal about multi-level marketing businesses.  That acronym "MLM" is thrown around as if it were a terrible thing.  Multi-level marketing is a perfectly legitimate business model.  But even still, Nouveau Riche is not a multi-level marketing business.  Multi-level marketing businesses DO function by enrolling unsalaried salespeople (also called distributors, Independent Business Owners, Franchise Owners, Sales Consultants, Consultants, Independent Agents, etc...) to sell products and earn commissions on those sales.  This is the only similarity.

In an MLM, distributors earn a commission based on the sales efforts of their entire organization, which includes one's own independent sale efforts as well as the leveraged sales efforts of their down-the-line hires/distributors.  This is much like franchise arrangements in which royalties are paid from the sales of individual franchise operations to the franchisor as well as to an area or region manager.  In an MLM there can be multiple levels of people receiving royalties from one person's sales.

Examples of well-known MLM companies are weight-loss, nutrition and skin-care giant Herbalife and Mary Kay cosmetics.

In the case of Nouveau Riche, a marketer never gives up a part of their sales commission to multiple people in different levels of the organization.  As a trainee, the commissions on the marketer's first few sales go directly to the trainee's Independent Student Associate (ISA), just as if it were the ISA that made the sale.  After these first few "training sales" the trainee becomes "certified" to sell the products and never again does ANY of the sales commission go to anyone else.  Once certified as an ISA, the marketer is the sole profit taker in 100% of his sales commissions.  An example of this elsewhere might be in the insurance industry in a situation in which an agent's apprentice might first open a certain number of new accounts for new customers before he is allowed to handle clients/accounts of his own.  The new accounts that he opens as a trainee go to his direct superior.

A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves income generation through recruiting other people into the scheme, usually without any product or service being delivered.  The individual makes one payment, but is promised to somehow receive exponential benefits from other people as a reward. A common example might be an offer that, for a fee, allows the victim to sell the same offer to other people (the offer of course being the ability to sell the offer), or receive bonuses through other people they refer. Each sale includes a fee to the original seller.

Clearly, the flaw is that there is no end benefit; the money simply travels up the chain, and only the originator (or at best a very few) wins in swindling his followers. Of course, the people in the worst situation are the ones at the bottom of the pyramid: those who subscribed to the plan, but were not able to recruit any followers themselves.

Nouveau Riche is a normal product/service-providing company.  There are services offered: the mainstay of the college, which is education/instruction in real estate investing strategies, and in addition ancillary credit services, mortgage brokerage services, accounting and legal services, property management services, etc.  There are also physical products sold such as educational literature and other materials such as investment software and company branded consumer merchandise (polo shirts, tote bags etc.).

Many people purchase these products directly and do not even attempt to market them to other people.  For those that CHOOSE to market the products, and make a sale, a commission on the sale is paid to them for their effort.  This is no different than any other direct-to-consumer sales business, aside from the fact that NO ONE is hired as an employee of Nouveau Riche strictly for the purpose of selling the products.

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation named after the Italian immigrant Charles Ponzi.  It involves paying or at least promising abnormally high returns ("profits") to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business activities.

The scheme essentially consists of a single individual offering a high return, say 30% in 30 days on an investment.  Investors submit their funds, under the impression their money will be invested in a lucrative venture, arbitrage of some kind for instance.  The scam is that there is no real investment activity taking place.  The money from investor D goes to pay out "profits" to investors A, B, and C. When investors X, Y, and Z put in money, that money is available to pay "profits" to investors A through W. 

The scheme initially works well because the early investors get paid their returns as advertised, so they usually reinvest (i.e. keep) their money in the scheme as it generally pays a higher return than most other alternatives.  This means that those running the scheme do not actually have to pay out very much (net) – they simply send statements to investors that show how much the investors have earned by keeping the money in what appears to be a great place to get a high return.

The scheme eventually collapses because:

a) authorities get wise to the illegal activity and shut it down

b) the originators take the money and leave town

or

c) the promoters have trouble getting new investors and eventually run out of funds to pay out all the promised returns and more and more people start asking for their money, similar to a bank run.

Obviously none of this has any similarity to Nouveau Riche.  There is no "investment opportunity" offered by the company and there is certainly no "promised return."  A product is marketed, purchased and then provided.  Again, if any individual wishes to market the product to someone else, and ends up making a sale from the referral, a commission is paid for the effort.

As for "direct marketing", yes, Nouveau Riche only markets its products and services through individuals, contracted as independents.  There are no television ads, billboards, radio spots or any use of any other kind of intervening media paid for by the company itself.  Sales of the company's products are generally made by face-to-face contact with the customer. 

The author appears to believe this is a negative thing.

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3. Real estate investing and education is an ancillary part of NRU. It is the 'product' that they sell, but it might as well be long-distance phone plans, an internet web-based business, vitamins, or make-up.

--This makes little sense.  You admit investing tools and education are the products sold, and then say, “it may as well be [any other product].”  Yeah.  Businesses sell products and/or services.  Nouveau Riche is a business.  It sells a product just like Time Warner Cable, Amazon.com, GNC and Estée Lauder.  What’s your point?

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4. NRU's success is a direct product of the real estate mania this country has experienced over the past 7 years, not anything inherently great about the company's products or services.

--This is a complete statement of opinion from an individual who obviously has a negative bias.  There is no evidence or factual information to even support such a claim.

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The 'Education'

5. For $16,000, you really don't get very much. You receive a certain number of 'college' credits that expire after two years, but the catch is that you have to fly to Arizona to use them and you can only do that four times a year for a one-week period each time. There is an on-line option, but it is sub-par for a variety of reasons.

--Again, a statement of opinion, a misleading “fact” coupled with a complete falsity followed by another fact coupled with another opinion.  For anyone that really wants to know, it’s on the website (collegeinfo.nouveauriche.com).  Yes, one tuition package is offered for $16,000.  It includes 120 hours of class time.  There are three tuition packages offered:

30 NR hours        =             5 days - $6,000

60 NR hours        =             10 days - $10,000

120 NR hours     =             20 days - $16,000

The classes are currently held at the Renaissance Glendale Hotel in Glendale, AZ.  According to the feature in the June/July 2008 issue of Success magazine construction on the permanent Nouveau Riche campus in Scottsdale, AZ is expected to be completed by the end of 2010, after which time all classes will be held therein. 

Classes are held quarterly throughout the year, usually for a period of 6 days per session.  Tuition purchasers can attend any combination of days, and under the $16,000 package have 1.25 years (5 college sessions) to take courses (and repeat any if they wish) and another 1.25 years (5 college sessions) to repeat any courses they wish.  Each tuition package is also good for two people.  The reason we always hear about the $16,000 tuition is because it is the most popular one, and well over 95% of students enroll with it. 

Students can take up to 9 hours of class time per day if they desire, for at least 4 days of the week, then another 2 days where they can take up to 6 hours of classes.  This calculates to up to 48 hours of class time per week per partner.  Each partner has full control over their own schedules and can choose classes they want, and can choose to attend for any combination of days during the sessions.  Calculation:

10 weeks of school over a 2.5 year period.  48 hours per week x 10 weeks = up to 480 hours of potential in-class time x 2 people is 960 total in-class hours for a Regents Tuition.  $16,000 divided by 960 = $16.67/hr of class time.

Over 20 courses are also offered in online format, with audio and video of the instructor teaching a live class, which Regents tuition holders can view an unlimited number of times, not counting against their purchased credits.

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6. The courses are amateur hour and taught in seminar-fashion. They may dazzle people who don't have a college degree, but will offer little to those who are generally versed in basic real estate and financial concepts. The educational materials are photocopied, hand-bound booklets, sometimes just an outline of the power point presentation. The instructors appear to be knowledgeable in their field, but they are mainly interested in consulting fees and fees for other services that they offer to NRU members (not altruism as many NRU shills would like you to believe).

--I’m not exactly sure what accredited university the author attended to get his “college degree” but if by “seminar-fashion” he means a group of students sitting in chairs with a table or desk sitting in front of them, facing an instructor standing at the front of the room, then okay:  99.99% of all courses taught in every major university (and high school and middle school for that matter) are taught in “seminar-fashion” and I suppose Nouveau Riche is no exception.  The author also implies that instructors spend class time pushing their own products and services on students…something they are contractually bound AGAINST doing by the company.

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7. NRU does not 'teach' you anything you can't learn by spending a few dollars on Amazon.com. There are no secret tips to learn that haven't been published in the hundreds of real estate books you can buy on your own.

--While an obvious stretch of a statement to begin with, one could say the same thing about nearly every class at any institution of learning.  Can you name one thing you learned in any course, throughout your entire tenure from pre-school through a bachelor’s degree, that wasn’t already published somewhere?  What’s more, isn’t one of the major costs of college matriculation “books”?  What is the purpose of paying the LARGEST cost of college (tuition) when you could avoid college all together and just buy the books the professor makes you read?  (which, many times, if you go to a decent university, he/she wrote themselves anyway…uh-oh…instructor pushing his own products???)

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8. The 'education' is primarily a vehicle for the direct marketing aspect of NRU, just as Investor's Concierge is there to give members credibility when they market the course. The Concierge, however, is also another mechanism by which NRU extracts additional money from its students. More on this later.

--Good call there.  Essentially, you called out the company on its “crazy practice” of using the products it sells as a draw to get customers.  Wow. 

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Real Estate as an Investment Class

9. In marketing the tuition, a great deal of emphasis is placed on how real estate can make you rich. There is little or no information on how risky investing in real estate can be. At the 'briefings' (the 2-hour presentation designed to lure new members), the presenter will talk a lot about how great real estate is because of the availability of leverage and certain tax benefits. At several briefings I went to, the presenter would literally make the representation that real estate prices only go up. Finally, the presenter will talk about how terrible it is to work for a corporation and how useless a college education is (ala Robert Kiyosaki). This usually manifests itself in the form of derisive acronyms, such as JOB, which stands for 'Just Over Broke', or how only NRU can give you an MBA that's worth anything, a 'Massive Bank Account' (crowd usually goes wild here).

--First of all, real estate investing CAN make you rich.  Just like nearly anything else if done right.  This is not wrong or false.  In fact, more wealth is generated from real estate investing than nearly any other business venture.  The Forbes 400 list makes this blatantly obvious year after year.  Do a Google search of “what the wealthy invest in.” 

Second, no one ever talks about college education being "useless."  Nouveau Riche's MAIN PRODUCT is college education.

Third, name one company that when first introducing you to its product (especially if it’s a product you’ve never used before and/or are unfamiliar with) goes into all the things that could go wrong with it.  When selling a car does the dealer put up statistics of how many people die annually in car accidents?  How about just some simple warnings about how many things can go wrong with the auto and how many different ways you could get hurt because of it and how much it might cost to fix it?  How about a new computer system…do the instructions go into detail on the value and amount of information that could be lost should the system crash, or the possible detriment to your livelihood should your personal information be leaked on the Internet while you are using the machine? 

The point is 

a) everyone is responsible for learning about what they’re getting into before they actually get into it…it’s called “due diligence”…a phrase most often used in—real estate.  

b) the risks involved in real estate investing are exactly one of the main focuses of some of the courses.  This is why there are classes such as “Real Estate 101” covering the basics, including the RISKS involved in RE investing…as well as others entitled “Market Analysis”, “Legal Strategies”, both of which include content related to possible pitfalls.  There is even an entire course entitled “Buyer Beware.”

And in general, real estate value DOES go up over time.  The fact is even stated many times that since such figures have been logged (1968) the average appreciation in RE has been 6% annually.  In the past 20 years, it’s been more than twice that.

P.S.

The term is “À la”…not “ala.”

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10. NRU never mentions the special risks inherent in residential real estate investing, such as problem tenants, financing and interest rate risk, structural and environmental risks associated with housing, the cost of maintenance, the prospect of asset depreciation or declining rents, and the risk of litigation including from eviction and foreclosure. Bottom line, investing in residential real estate is very risky and comes with a host of hazards you would not find in other asset classes. NRU discounts all of this and presents real estate as a perpetual money tree.

--Again, these are ALL risks covered in the actual courses.  I would love to see you run a company selling a product by only talking about its negative aspects.

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11. We will likely never experience again in our lifetimes the type of appreciation in residential real estate that we have seen these past few years. There are several reasons that this is very likely to be the case: reversion to the mean, unsustainable public/private debt burdens, massive transfer of wealth to developing nations, slowing economic growth, an aging population, greater regulation in the financial sector, etc.

--Once more, a complete opinion statement, and a SPECULATIVE statement at that...one which would require an EXTENSIVE knowledge of residual real estate markets and trends, economics and historical data to make…all of which I seriously doubt the author possesses.

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12. Historically, residential real estate prices have appreciated at the rate of inflation.

--This is a completely false statement.  Either the author just made it up or heard it somewhere and didn’t bother to check it.  It is something that is easily verifiable.  Since 1968 the average inflation rate in the United States is 4.71% (http://inflationdata.com).   Over the 36 year period (when RE appreciation data was first recorded/collected) up to 2004, the average price increase in the U.S. has been 6.4% (http://www.realestateabc.com/graphs/natlmedian.htm). 

And that is the AVERAGE appreciation of the MEDIAN home price over the past 36 years…imagine if one had a little EDUCATION and foresight enough to be a little smart about which markets, locations and specific properties they chose to invest in…

In one particular online forum discussing this very issue, one user stated his own property values:

1978 condo purchase in Diamond Head Hawaii 9%

1986 SFH purchase in SFBay area 10%

1994 SFH purchase in Vegas, baby, 8%

2003 condo purchase in Diamond Head Hawaii 20%

2004 condo purchase in Waikiki Hawaii 15%

And while the average median price has dropped considerably in the couple of years, this shift is remarkably unique and uncharacteristic of the market trends overall, making it unlikely to occur in the same fashion or in the near future...not to mention, it means that currently many markets of real estate are being offered and sold at extremely discounted prices.

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13. Real estate, like any other asset class, carries risks that are commensurate with the returns you are likely to generate. For example, leverage is great in good times, but people are quickly learning how easy it is for your equity to get wiped out a result of relatively small declines in home prices.

--This is for the most part a true statement, which is also covered in class…but again, as stated before, what we are currently seeing is not a “relatively small decline in home prices”.

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14. Investor Concierge deals are generally market-rate deals, but they are advertised to NRU students as amazing deals that generate positive cash flow. There are other sites that break this down, but generally speaking, the appraisals are usually 2-3 pages long and contain nothing more than a broker's opinion of value, the financing is almost always interest only or neg-am, the rents are inflated, and the only way you get 'positive cash flow' is if you include certain seller incentives like pre-paid HOA or guaranteed rent, most of which will expire within 2 years. Additionally, maintenance and vacancy will almost immediately eat away at the $100 of positive cash-flow a month you get. NRU members hate talking about the details of the Investor Concierge deals.

--Most of this is either untrue or a stretch of truth.  For a clear general breakdown of Investor Concierge deals see http://newrich.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/are-the-investor-concierge-deals-any-good/

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15. Typically, there are only 15-20 available properties on the Concierge at any given time, so the pickins are slim. NRU encourages you to reserve a property you like as soon as you see it online, because it could get snatched up by someone else unless you do. The non-refundable fee for reserving a property is $350.

--Again, see the link above.

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16. Investor Concierge deals are mainly located in historically depressed or undeveloped, sub-urban or rural real estate markets, you will generally not find properties on the system in established, urban markets. These properties are likely to experience declines in this market and will not likely appreciate much at all when the economy recovers.

--Again, see the link above.

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17. Anyone who has purchased a deal off of Investor Concierge over the last two years has either lost all of their equity or is underwater. This is a terrifying prospect for many people in NRU because at the briefings, many of them go up to the front and brag about how they have bought 5, 10, 15 or even 20 properties over the past few months. Many of these people are going to have to walk away from their homes in the coming years, which will destroy their credit and eat up any ponzi money they made from the marketing.

--Another completely unfounded speculation statement presented as fact from someone without evidence or figures to support such claims.

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The Marketing

18. The real estate investing component of NRU is used mainly to support the primary business of the company which is selling tuition packages. There are three options which cost different amounts, but most people are pressured to purchase the 'Regent's' packing together with the 'Encyclopedia', which total almost $20,000. There are certain commission and tuition-related perks you get for buying the most expensive package.

--Gee.  The product the company sells is mainly used to support the primary business of the company, which is selling the product it sells.  Go figure.

The rest of the information in #18 is mostly true, as there are different commission and tuition-related perks that are included with the different tuition packages.  Basically the higher price you pay (i.e. the more you buy), the more you get.  Again, go figure.

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19. The commission system is what really drives NRU. NRU members can get a 50% commission for each package they sell, so sometimes that amounts to nearly $10,000 a pop, and there is an added wrinkle that causes that number to multiply very quickly if people you sign up also, in turn, sign up additional students. The mathematics make the commission structure extremely lucrative IF YOU ARE GOOD AT SALES. This is hook that gets most people to fork over the money.

--I don’t see anything wrong with this statement, other than a possible implication of a pyramid scheme setup.  There is no “sign up fee”.  Commissions are made only when a product is sold…just like any other business.  The author might claim “signing up” and “buying tuition” are the same thing, but in the definition of illegal pyramid schemes, this is an important distinction to make.  There are tangible products and verifiable services marketed and sold.  Once a marketer is “certified” to sell a certain product or service after giving up the commissions on the first few sales to his Independent Student Associate, he is the sole profit taker in his sales.  Never after those first few “training sales” does any of the marketer’s commission go to anyone else.  Even during the training phase, the commission he gives up to his ISA ONLY goes to his ISA.  There is no one at any other level that partakes in those commission profits. 

The only time the “added wrinkle” the author refers to occurs is when a marketer, still in training, makes a sale to a person who then also makes a sale of his own before said marketer is certified himself.  In this situation, said marketer does not have a right to the sale commission, as it is still his ISA, not himself training the new marketer that just made the newest sale.   In other words,  even though it was the trainee who referred the person who made the latest sale, it was not the trainee who was responsible for that referred person.  The trainee cannot receive commissions for someone else’s sale before he can take commissions on his own sales.

Example:

-Jane is an ISA (certified marketer) and makes a sale to Vivian.  

-Vivian wishes to be able to market the products, so she becomes an Independent Training Associate (ITA/trainee), and Jane is responsible for training her. 

-Vivian makes a sale to Tom. 

-Tom likes the education and decides to market the products as well, making him a trainee under the certified trainer (Jane) because Vivian is not qualified to train him.  Vivian has no connection with Tom other than the fact that his purchase counted as part of her certification process.  Tom is now a trainee with Jane, just like Vivian.

-Tom makes a sale to Jessica.

-Because Tom is a trainee, the commission from the sale goes to his trainer, Jane.  Nothing goes to Vivian from Tom’s sale.

That is basically the “added wrinkle”.  Once Vivian and Tom are certified, they no longer have any connection to Jane.  As a certified ISA, Vivian is now the sole profit-taker, taking 100% of the commission in 100% of her sales, forever.  She is now free to mentor her own trainees.  This is essentially a direct mirror of many brokerage firms as well as the insurance industry in general.

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20. Most people are unsuccessful at selling tuition packages. It's akin to trying to sell a used car, except you would probably get more value from a junker than the 'education' that NRU offers. It's obvious why the 'education' NRU offers is not worth $20,000, most of that needs to go subsidize the commission system, which is needed to lubricate the entire NRU machinery.

--The first sentence here is by definition a factual statement, yet it is not based in any fact whatsoever.  I would be interested to see any sort of evidence suggesting “most people are ‘unsuccessful’ at selling the tuition packages.”   To be sure, there are plenty of people that pay for the tuition and attend the college that are not interested in marketing it.  They are interested in doing what they attended the college to do in the first place: invest in real estate.  I don’t believe anyone would NOT pay the $75 licensing cost for the ABILITY to market the college and collect any commissions they might be privy to when they refer friends and family, but there are many students of the college that have no interest in making a business out of marketing it. 

Interestingly, the author suggests the education is useless, and that the only “real” product is the commissions to be made from selling it, which he in turn claims most people are unsuccessful at selling in the first place…even though the college has grown tenfold in the past two years.  What’s more, CEO Jim Piccolo has invested nearly 100% of year 2007’s revenue from the college into the development of a 30+ acre permanent campus for the college complete with nearly 400 housing units, the plans for which were featured in the June/July 2008 issue of Success magazine. 

If the product being sold is so horrible, and the people marketing are so bad at selling it, why the growth?  Why the investment of a state-of-the-art campus facility?

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21. The commission system places a lot of pressure on NRU members to sell, sell, sell. This is how all the top 'producers' have made most of their money. This also creates a massive conflict of interest. More on this later.

--It is an oxymoron to equate a “commission system” with “pressure on the seller.”  It is even more ridiculous to claim commissions somehow create a "conflict of interest."  The commission is an incentive to refer others to the college.  No one HAS to do it.  No one is “pressured” into marketing the college.  You have to pay a licensing cost to even do it.  No one is hired to sell the product.  It is never stated to be a sole means of income. 

Many people state that they have been able to replace their W2 income with the marketing and have therefore decided to quit their former job, but there is no reason for any person to feel “pressure” to sell.  There is no quota to be met in some time frame to lock in a Christmas bonus.  There is no number of “team sales” needed to reach a “company goal” so that you can get a promotion and finally make ends meet.   Where does the “pressure” come in? 

And even if anyone was in such a position that they felt they needed to make a sale, how would it be any different from any other commission-based sales job?  And wouldn’t it be fair to assume one understands what commission-based sales is before one takes such a job…especially when it is explained to him multiple times?

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22. The direct marketing aspect of NRU preys on the greed and naïveté© of all sorts of people, but mainly lower-middle class individuals, young people just starting out, and real estate agents/brokers, many of whom don't have a lot of education and work crappy jobs that they aren't happy with.

--So that would mean you consider yourself naïve and in one of these categories. 

Interesting, here you seem to infer you have little education while elsewhere in your post presume to have such extensive knowledge of the inner workings of major universities.

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23. NRU is tied in with the likes of Robert Kiyosaki and 'The Secret'. I'm not going to bore you with the analysis, but try Google and you will find plenty of critiques.

--And of course by “tied in with” you mean “mentions the names of and quotes from...” 

And it would be incredibly useful if you HAD provided any sort of “analysis.”  Not only are there no ties whatsoever to those authors or their books, even if there were it would be nice to know what would be wrong with that.

The fact is “I’m not going to bore you” really means “I really have nothing to say, I’m just hoping you’ll take this and assume it’s another negative example.”

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Conflicts of Interest

24. NRU generates tremendous income directly from its students. They make money not only from the tuition, but also from marketing materials and services, credit services, mortgage brokerage services, accounting and legal services, special seminars, Investor Concierge transactions, all of which cost extra, and they're not cheap. You also have to pay for lodging and the plane ticket to get to the college. All of the NRU instructors also offer consulting deals and other professional services, which also cost extra. The $16,000 for the Regent's tuition only buys you 'college' credits, you get NOTHING ELSE. You even have to buy the forms and brochures you need to sign up people for NRU. I take that back, you do get a tote bag, but it looks ridiculous.

--The first sentence here essentially translates to: “The company generates a lot of its income directly from the people who buy its products.”  …Yet another revelation for the record books. 

Let’s see if the exact sentences and phraseology can be used to describe anything else…perhaps replace “Nouveau Riche” with, say “Harvard”…It would then read: “Harvard University generates tremendous income directly from its students.  They make money not only from the tuition, but also from marketing materials and services, credit services… [at this point the services become unrelated, but you get the idea.]…all of which cost extra, and they’re not cheap.  You also have to pay for lodging and the plane ticket to get to the college.” 

Gee.  This “Harvard University” sounds like a really sour deal, doesn’t it?

The statement of “the $16,000 for the Regent's tuition only buys you 'college' credits, you get NOTHING ELSE” is completely false.  The author completely contradicts himself here, as he specifically stated in #18: "There are certain commission and tuition-related perks you get for buying the most expensive package."  So which is it?  Are there "added perks" or do you get "NOTHING ELSE"?

The truth is not only is every tuition package good for TWO people, each one also grants a certain level of access and usage to the Investor Concierge website, with the highest level of access reserved for the Regent’s tuition holders.  The "tote bag" the author speaks of is actually a black business-type satchel that comes with myriad other marketing materials which are all covered by the $75 marketing startup cost, supposing you even wish to pay for that.

The extra services are just that: extra.  They are not required, not inherently necessary, not actively marketed to students in any way.  They are barely even mentioned when introducing potential students to the college.  They are offered as services to aid in different facets of a student’s individual investment and business development strategy.  Many students may not need or ever use some or any of the extra services offered.  What is so wrong with offering extra services that some might find useful?  If you don’t want em, don’t get em.

It would not be a far stretch to contend that if such services WEREN'T offered, the author would then complain that "students are left to fend for themselves" with "no helpful means with which to help them protect their assets or set up the mortgage deals they learn to construct in their classes" or any of the other things the services provide.

It seems this author wishes to only mention the things he feels will help his complaint sound better and in a way that makes normal and even additional business attributes sound negative. 

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25. NRU members are supposed to be 'mentors' to the new members who they sign up, but what they really want from you is for you to sell the tuition to others, because they will get a cut of the first few sales you make. There is a huge conflict of interest here because there is a big incentive for NRU members to sell the tuition, irrespective of the quality of the product or the unique situation of people to whom they are marketing.

--I’m not sure what sort of services you expected to get from your ISA, but there are no false claims presented at any stage of the process.  If you wished to know what is exactly provided to you for any cost you pay, be it the $75 startup cost to be a marketer or the $16,000 tuition to take 120 hours of classes, I’m sure all you had to do was ask.

And again, if you want to claim that a commission on the sale of a product provides a conflict of interest for the person selling it, then there’s not much anyone can say to you.  Talk to any business that pays any sort of sales commission and ask them if that’s what they call it.  Or better yet, start a company of your own and try to sell your product while paying your sales people an hourly wage only.

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26. NRU encourages you to sell to friends and family, which destroys relationships when people are dissatisfied or feel cheated, which is often the case.

--Another completely embellished, more than likely fabricated speculative statement made without evidence.  No one is “encouraged” to sell to anyone.  No one even has to market the college at all. 

And one just has to love the rich verbiage used by the author here: “destroys relationships” followed by the complete lie of “which is often the case.”  That entire sentence is an obvious and ridiculous attempt at defamation of a company the author obviously has a bias against.

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27. The most distasteful defense of NRU to me is that 'it's not for everyone, but it worked for me'. It may be that there are some people who are successful and make lots of money in NRU, but the system cannot support a situation where most of the people in NRU make tons of money. This is the inherent, mathematical limitations of these types of marketing structures. I'm sure someone smarter than me can prove this. Likewise, the real estate market cannot support most people in NRU making money in residential real estate investing. Case in point is the short sale strategy, which NRU shills tout as the way to make money in a down market. Well, there is so much competition in short sales right now, and even more with each 'college' I suppose, that short sale investors are bidding up pre-foreclosures pretty much to market. These fundamental concepts virtually guaranty that only a small minority of 28. NRU members will make any money either from the marketing or the real estate investing, and REQUIRE everyone else to fail in order for the system to sustain itself. This is the biggest conflict of interest of them all and lends to NRU's reputation as a 'scam'.

--First, the statement of “it’s not for everyone, but it worked for me” is not a “defense” of anything.  Direct sales and real estate investing ARE NOT for everyone.  I believe that is an empirical fact that no one can rightfully deny.  The “…but it worked for me” part is a statement of fact for anyone who truthfully says it.  As for “lots of people make tons of money” there is truth and falsity there.  It depends on what you mean by “lots of people” and “tons of money”.  It also depends on whether you’re talking about simply selling Nouveau Riche products or real estate investing. 

There is essentially an infinite amount of money to be made in real estate.   Not only is the urban development expected in the next 30 years worth trillions of dollars in the U.S. alone, there are deals constantly being made on currently existing properties all the time, and situations are created in which all parties involved win, many times with the “fast nickel vs. slow dollar” outlook.  The problem is the average person is not versed well enough in real estate to understand or even see that such opportunities exist, much less know how they work, how to spot them and most importantly, how to take advantage of them…which is why as of 2001 the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 33.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 51%.

And again, doing a simple search into “what the wealthy invest in” you’ll see most of it is real estate.  If real estate is so bad, and is really just the bottomless pit of risk and losses the author makes it out to be, why do the rich (who invest mostly in real estate) keep getting richer?  Are they just that lucky?  Or is it possible they know a few things other people don’t?  Sure a large bankroll makes certain deals and acquisitions easier to come by and having more money to invest and utilize does open more doors as to the types and number of deals someone can get involved in…but not everyone with money knows what to do with it.  There are plenty of those who made and are currently making their fortune in real estate using their own knowledge and utilizing the funds of others who have money, wish to make a return on it, and don’t know anything about real estate investing and/or don’t wish to put in the time.  And just as the more money you have the greater the number of (and types of) deals you can be a part of, the more knowledge and experience you have, the more deals you can create for yourself…in any industry.

So can “lots of people make tons of money” in real estate investing?  Well, what is “lots of people”? 10 million?  50 million?  100 million?  And what is “tons of money?”  $300k a year?   $750k?  $1million? $10 million?  There is no question there is that much available.  Another problem is people cannot easily grasp such large numbers.  How much is 1 billion?  One thousand seconds is a little less than 17 minutes.   One HUNDRED thousand seconds is a little over a full day: 28 hours.  Count off 1 MILLION seconds, and you’ll be busy for over a week and a half.  And 1 billion seconds?  That accounts for almost 32 years of your life.  How about 1 trillion seconds?  31,709 years.

Nouveau Riche actually mentions in lecture the November 2005 feature article from Business 2.0 magazine detailing the outward growth and eventual connection of major U.S. metropolitan areas into 10 megapolitans…the resulting estimated development market by the year 2030?  $25 Trillion.  That’s with a “T.”  There is plenty of wealth to go around in real estate.

(http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2005/11/01/8362817/index.htm)

As far as making money marketing the college, there are currently over 300 million people in the United States and the number is constantly growing exponentially.  Even though nowhere near all of them would be interested in attending Nouveau Riche, there is far too large of a market for RE investment education for it to be completely tapped any time soon.  People are constantly looking for ways to learn more and leverage their time and money to get ahead and advance in their lives.  There is virtually no realistic scenario that could occur in the next few DECADES in which the market would be so saturated with current NR students that a marketer could no longer sell the product.  The numbers are just far too big.  

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Conclusion

NRU is a marketing business that encourages and monetarily incentivizes its members to use high-pressure sales tactics to sell a highly expensive real estate 'education' package with questionable value to unsophisticated people with the lure of quick money and unlimited riches in real estate. Success in NRU is highly dependent on (1) a booming real estate market and/or (2) a unique talent in sales and marketing. What makes NRU so insidious is that it plays on the fear and greed of ordinary people, often friends and family, most of whom will go bankrupt by following NRU investment strategies during a severe and sustained real estate down turn such as the one we are experiencing now, and most of whom will fail in selling the tuition package because they lack the sales and marketing expertise, which is further exacerbated by a declining real estate market. Taken as whole, NRU may be perfectly legal, but many people will feel like they were cheated out of thousands of dollars by someone they trusted. If after reading this, you are still interested then by all means sign up. But just be prepared to live with it if at some point you find yourself either financially bankrupt, morally bankrupt, or even worse, both.

--Again, no facts to be found, but plenty of personal opinion without supporting evidence: “ 'education' package with questionable value”, “…friends and family, most of whom will go bankrupt by following NRU investment strategies” “many people will feel like they were cheated”.

And not to mention still so self-deprecating: “sell […] to unsophisticated people”, “plays on the fear and greed of ordinary people”.

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Epilogue

Finally, you're not going to see a whole lot of posts like this from people who have joined NRU. Most are very disillusioned at the loss of thousands of dollars and don't even want to give it another thought. The rest are out searching for marks. I can only hope that NRU won't survive this bear market in housing, and if this post can hasten its demise, so much the better. I don't blame the person who signed me up, he incidentally has had to find a full-time job now since NRU is apparently not doing it for him. I walked into this with my eyes wide open, which shows you how greed can overcome any good judgment you may think you have. But I am thankful that I didn't end up dragging anyone else into this apart from a good friend as my partner in this scheme, but with whom, as a result of NRU, am no longer on speaking terms. So for all of you NRU shills out there who still think you are doing God's work, why don't you try calling each and every person you have signed up and ask them exactly what they think about NRU. I think you will find that my experience is not so unique. If you can keep on selling after that, well then, good luck to you.

--Wow.  You’ve got every angle covered don’t you?  You claim that “MOST people are BANKRUPT from implementing strategies” they learned from seasoned investors…so of course the next question becomes “Well how come we aren’t hearing from all these people?”  Which is definitely a fair question, because I haven’t read ONE single negative review in which the poster makes any claims of bankruptcy or even loss of revenue or income. 

So what’s the answer?  Well apparently that’s easy:  The fact that we don’t hear from any of these poor, “financially and morally bankrupt” souls is of course because all those THOUSANDS of “cheated” individuals are so “very disillusioned at the loss of thousands of dollars and don't even want to give it another thought.”

Are you kidding me?  Thousands of people have attended Nouveau Riche college sessions.  The author claims that “MOST [of those] people are BANKRUPT from implementing strategies” they learned there, and the only reason we haven't heard about it is because they all would just rather not think about it?  Give me a break.

The truth is that entire "report" is made up of about 2% semi-truth, 48% opinion and 50% attempts at defamation with no supporting evidence, and, in multiple areas, statements that are complete lies.

The truth is Nouveau Riche is a legitimate business, it is what it says it is, and it does what it says it does.  It offers specialized education and tools in a realm of investment that not many know about or even know how to learn about, and it does so through seasoned investors, all teaching techniques and strategies they personally use in their own businesses.

Is the product sold worth the money charged?  That is for the individual to decide.  There are many people not at all interested in real estate investment who would probably say $50 is too much, as they have no interest in the product.  They would rather spend their money elsewhere.  There are many other people who have actually attended the college who have said the college has changed their life, and that the information they gained from the courses has offered them opportunities they would not have otherwise had and they have subsequently made their financial investment back, many times over. 

If you are reading this it is fair to assume you are considering attending the college and are doing your due diligence, which is exactly what you should be doing.  Just as with any other major purchase or investment, find out as much as you can about the business and the products it sells.  Most importantly, seek out the opinions of those who have been exposed to the services as well as identify your own interests, personal attributes and goals.  Attend one of the weekend events.  Nouveau Riche calls them "intensives".  One can attend such an event for free as the guest of an ISA.  The event is basically a day of free instruction from one of the college instructors.  There is nothing offered for sale other than the college itself.  "Intensives" are essentially a free and almost literal "test drive" of the college and are the best way to see the type of service one would be paying for with a tuition purchase.

The business IS legitimate and is what it claims it is.  It provides business, financial literacy and real estate investing education of the utmost quality.  The only question, as with any other business/product is: is it something you want?

Aloha everyone! NR is the best education you can get in real estate investing! DON'T BE A SPECTATOR BE A PLAYER AND GET OFF THIS BLOG AND GO & ATTEND A MEETING AND MAKE A DECISION FOR YOURSELF IF IT'S THE REAL DEAL OR NOT! Have fun, life is too short to be spending all your precious time on a blog that is full of negativity. IT'S WORTH IT!