Robert Allen

Robert Allen is a gifted writer who addresses a novel topic, no money down real-estate. He gained some notoriety by his books and lectures on the subject. Some feel that he is pioneer in this field.

About his recent seminars and books, however there is some dispute as to the validity and applicability of the material. The long and short of it is that the seminars and books, while they teach some good material, are dated and filled with inaccuracies and material that applies only to Los Angles County and the State of California.

The Seminars (of varying length and size) have been sold at varying prices to people, by telephone and mail. The approaches are made to people who are on a "mooch" list gathered by his books, infomercials, and mailing lists compiled and shared by other speakers.

In my opinion the teachings of Robert Allen don't have any real money making application once you actually take them outside the Seminar rooms. There is a money-back guarantee offered by the Seminars, but everyone I've talked to about this guarantee says it's next to impossible to collect on the guarantee.

Of course Robert Allen himself claims that you can't have a refund until you have made some type of documented effort in a certain specified amount of time. He says you must first apply the course methods with unsuccessful results before a refund will be granted. I've still read reports on the news groups from several students that claim they were still not issued a refund even after making a documented effort to show the course did not work for them.

When people buy the courses and then find out the amount of work required, they're usually turned off to the whole thing. So they don't get the required documentation to allow them to get a refund, or even if no documentation is required they just don't want to hassle with the thing anymore so they just don't apply for a refund at all.

In my opinion, to make sure they never had to make good on any of these refund requests that were piling up, Mr. Allen and/or his seminar company filed for bankruptcy several years ago.

The schemes Robert Allen typically produces, usually involve buying "distressed" properties at discounted prices. "Distressed", in this case, means properties about to go into foreclosure, properties from estate sales, owners going through divorce, owners who can't manage their property due to lack of time, illness. Such conditions are independent of the general real estate market. So even though the general market is bad for homeowners because property values aren't rising, if you buy a distressed property for 20% under market value, do you care that values aren't rising?

The one caution to this is if the local economy is going through a severe recession with rampant layoffs. You may pick up a lot of property at great values, but if you don't have any buyers because no one has a job or no one wants to move into the area because there are no jobs, you'll get stuck with properties you can't unload.

The funny thing about all these real estate investment schemes is that they seem to pop up just when the real estate market is at its worst. I guess all those real estate "experts" need another source of income.

Another thing I heard was that Robert Allen had amassed a lot of money through his real estate techniques but then decided to branch out into ventures he had no experience in (e.g., producing television shows?).

In my opinion, you would have negative cash flow following his books. And I think at worst, you would go bankrupt and wind up in jail. He never actually says it, but his nothing-down techniques practically require you to mislead an institutional lender or take advantage of an unsophisticated seller or both. I think he wants to give you this message without actually coming out and saying it for obvious reasons.

The president of his Atlanta Robert Allen Nothing Down Club literally went to federal prison (at Eglin AFB, FL) for doing illegal nothing-down deals. In my opinion, there is almost nothing in his material about how to make a profit. Rather he simply assumes that real estate goes up so much every year that you need only buy it to cash in. What if the real estate market doesn't go up for a couple years? Robert Allen doesn't like to talk about that possibility.

Allen himself got into financial difficulty with the IRS as early as 1984. In 1986, the IRS filed a $346,395.79 lien against Allen.

I think Allen has an interesting story to tell. But it's not the one he sells. He should speak about real estate investment the way a reformed alcoholic speaks about drinking.

I am now told by trusted sources that Robert Allen is sending out bulk email soliciting customers for a business opportunity that has "nothing to do with real estate." One reader tells me Allen is now into multi-level marketing of vitamins. As far as I'm concerned, nothing he has ever done had anything to do with real estate. It was merely about making Robert Allen rich and famous.

I heard that Allen is telling people his bankruptcy was caused by an avalanche that destroyed an expensive home he and his wife were building. I don't believe that story one bit. I think there is far too much evidence against this avalanche being the cause and there is plenty of evidence that it was his bad business practices that caused his bankruptcy.

I attended one of his seminars, and it was rife with hype and promises that weren't kept. But hey, I got a cool $35 calculator (that they wanted me to pay extra for) at the seminar. It cost me well over $2000. At least the calculator still works.

I also heard from my trusted source that Robert Allen uses a very pathetic tactic to make extra money while doing his seminars. He gets up there on stage and cries in front of everybody to yank on their emotional chains and gets everybody to feel sorry for him and feel "close" to him and trust him? He's really good at this "feel sorry for Robert Allen act" and it gets people to want to give him their money everytime. I didn't learn and understand about this type of trick until many years later when someone else told me about it, did it and I saw the people come to comfort him and buy his product.

I hope I just saved you, and whoever else reads this, a significant amount of money, that the seminar sales promoters ask you to BORROW FROM PEOPLE YOU KNOW if you don't have enough to pay for the seminar with your own money. This is a sad way to do business in my opinion. Obviously I don't recommend the teachings of Robert Allen or his organization.