Apr

Be wary of property courses offering ‘quick routes to success’ says expert

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Leading landlord and evictions figure Paul Shamplina has warned those seeking property investment training to be “wary of courses which seem to provide easy shortcuts to success”.

His comments were made over the weekend within an investigation by The Telegraph newspaper into the ‘no money down’ property investment training sector.

As LandlordZONE has reported many times, these courses encourage investors to become rent-to-rent landlords by sub-letting properties through ‘property deals’ from superior landlords/legal owners and then renting them usually as HMOs for a profit.

What some of these courses fail to highlight is the inherent financial risk of doing this, the difficulty of sourcing deals or the increasing property licencing regulation that now covers many rented properties.

Money

“The reality is to get into property you have to have some money,” says Shamplina.

“The no-money-down dreams seldom come true. Education is absolutely imperative for investors but you can get a lot of the information for free online or at landlord events.”

The Telegraph article focusses on one such ‘no money down’ trainer, who charged one student – a nurse – £7,254 including a £3,000 course sign-up fee, nearly £600 in management fees and £3,666 to be mentored all for minimal return on the outlay.

Investors looking for trustworthy and ethical operators should turn to the PEAS or Property Educators Accreditation Scheme.

Launched in 2021 and backed by LandlordZONE, its founder Cyril Thomas said at the time: “PEAS will help future students looking for a property educator to discover ‘the good guys’ who have signed up to be ethical and transparent, and that it will strike a balance between cooperation and enforcement”.

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