Bill Vaughn: All About A Simple Man’s Coaching and Courses
Hey, what’s happening?
Thanks for dropping by my site! I’ve got all kinds of reviews here for ya, which you’ll see if you spend a few minutes looking around.
My reviews are some of the most comprehensive ones out there. If you’ve checked out other review sites, you know I’m right!
Enough about that. What about you?
What brings you here? Besides the obvious, I mean.
Are you a newbie investor? Or a pre-newb, even? (I just made up that word. I mean you’re not even a newbie yet; you’re still just checking out the whole idea.)
Are you rocking a life situation that is pulling you toward change . . . calling for more cash . . . prodding you to propel yourself to something better?
I get that. That used to be me, and I did what you’re doing (or thinking about doing)—I got into real estate investing as my hoped-for straight shot to success and financial security.
Unfortunately, it ended up being my straight shot to sh*t creek (sh*t river, really), and I found myself in the middle of it without a canoe, kayak or paddle. I lost all of my properties and investments, went bankrupt, didn’t have a clue what to do next, and had a wife and three kids to support.
(To the Bill Vaughn real estate review in a sec. . . .)
As I gasped and spluttered and choked and thrashed, a guy called out from the bank: Yo, Paul, I’m throwing a rope out to you! Have you ever considered doing digital property management?
No, I hadn’t, but out there in the middle of the creek, I was all ears. I grabbed that rope and pulled my way to the shore. He taught me about digital property management and I’ve never looked back. That’s not the point though. The road still wasn’t easy.
Since you’re here looking into real estate investing, I’m really not gonna discourage you from it. The only point that I’d make is that you are going to need to get one thing right before you begin. You need to get someone who knows the road ahead to take a look under the hood of your intentions.
OK, while the info I mentioned above is marinating in your brain, we’ll get to the review I promised you.
Here’s Bill Vaughn and Intellibiz. . . .
Bill Vaughn Background and Mini Bio
Bill Vaughn has been kicking around on the real estate scene since before the stork dropped me off on planet Earth. He learned the ins and outs of it from his dad, who did his first investing gig back in 1917. (Over a hundred freaking years ago!)
So, yeah, this guy has one or two years of investing history and experience.
In an article about himself that he wrote for the real estate scam and guru review site ScamsGalore.com (produced by Bill Vaughn Intellibiz), Vaughn says he perfected flipping as the go-to real estate investing strategy in the 1970’s. He also claims the reverse mortgage, eventually adopted by HUD, as his brainchild in 1985.
Bill Vaughn is best known for his course called The Simple Man’s Guide to Real Estate, which he produced in 1989 and around which he built his real estate investing program. Intellibiz is Vaughn’s publishing company through which he offers his courses and coaching programs.
In the Scams Galore review, he states that he began Intellibiz to offer his real estate program on a non-profit basis, and that it’s the only real estate investing course that includes free coaching by professional investors.
His website, Intellibiz.com, confirms that the real estate investing coaching is a free and unlimited lifetime offer. (He states that the offer of the coaching ends when coaches reach capacity, but if the offer is presented on the website, it means that mentors are still able to take on new mentees. In other words, if you don’t see the offer, no mentors are available.)
An additional link goes to a page that describes why coaching is free. The coaching is free because Vaughn and his private group of real estate investors believe that making available a high-quality real estate investing training course, complete with tools and free mentoring, would be their way to give back. Coaches are volunteers, according to the article.
I have to admit, I got kind of hung up on the “free unlimited lifetime coaching” offer, and Bill Vaughn wrote me an email giving me some clarity on the subject. Originally I couldn’t see how it worked. I couldn’t imagine all the people giving away information for free as volunteers.
But Vaughn clarified this for me. (This next part is being edited in 2018)
He said, “Our program, unlike all others, is very detailed and complete, requiring little (if any) mentoring for most clients. Other “gurus” intentionally make their materials vague in order to convince the client they need to pay huge sums for the mentoring. We do not do that. We INTENTIONALLY provide great detail, to insure they will not need much in the way of mentoring BECAUSE we provide it for free.”
Kudos to you and your staff Bill for bringing real value to people. You obviously care about seeing people succeed. Great stuff! (and thanks for the email.)
Incidentally, Bill’s email was a plea to take a closer look and was very respectful… a true gentleman. For that reason, I wanted to make sure to include his perspective here.
Bill Vaughn Simple Man’s Guide to Real Estate and More
The Simple Man’s Guide to Real Estate is Vaughn’s historic and flagship program. It contains material and strategies that will supposedly turn a few hours of work per week into a six-figure income. It teaches 22 investing methods and strategies:
· wholesaling or assigning;
· apartments;
· lease options;
· master lease options;
· foreclosures;
· pre-foreclosures;
· rehabbing;
· land contracts;
· short sales;
· double escrows;
· probate;
· lease & sublet;
· tax lien certificates;
· tax deed sales;
· note trading;
· reverse mortgages;
· sale & leaseholds;
· buying and renting;
· triple net lease;
· options;
· sweat options;
· and rolling options
The program consists of the Simple Man’s Guide course, unlimited 24/7 online/email mentoring, contract-writing software for both Windows and Mac (usable in all 50 states and Canada); a market value calculator, 600 pages of additional information in the form of 20 real-estate-related bonus books, an instant download of all materials, and the building of a webpage for V.I.P. club members.
Vaughn promises that investors who purchase and follow his course will close on at least six properties and earn at least $100,000 in their first year. If not, they’ll receive a refund of double the purchase price of the program. (Wow!)
Every order of the Simple Man’s Guide course comes with a set of audio CDs that contains 160 minutes of information. The full package costs $89.95 plus shipping.
That’s Vaughn’s main product offering. He does offer the V.I.P. Club “for serious-minded investors.” The V.I.P. Club costs $49/month and includes a 20-minute monthly phone coaching call with Vaughn, a created and hosted personal investor web page, free course updates, free software upgrades, and free replacements of lost or damaged course CDs.
There are no Bill Vaughn seminars, and when I searched for Bill Vaughn books, there were none available.
Vaughn has a modest social media presence. As of this writing, his last Facebook post was in 2013. There’s a Twitter icon on his website but I couldn’t find any tweets. He is fairly active on Google+, with posts as recent as three weeks ago. Most of the posts are personal in nature, with just a handful being real-estate related.
Bill Vaughn Customer Reviews, Raves, and Responses
To check out Bill Vaughn customer reviews, I looked at Intellibiz complaints, Intellibiz reviews, Intellibiz Better Business Bureau, Bill Vaughn BBB, gripe site postings, and independent real estate forum threads.
Gripe site posts (including USAComplaints.com and RipoffReport.com) are out there, and although the gripers genuinely believe they have been mortally wronged, there are enough thoughtful and thorough responses by Bill Vaughn that the complaints are pretty much deflated. I’m impressed that Vaughn so often takes the time to respond when it’s common knowledge that gripe site posts aren’t that reliable or trustworthy anyway. (Chuck Hall Intellibiz business partner demonstrated less patience in his response, which I get.) People are so often looking to blame their lack of initiative on others.
Intellibiz had five complaints registered at the Better Business Bureau between December 2013 and January 2016. They were all reasonably responded to by Intellibiz and the cases were closed.
I found a great thread about Bill Vaughn’s Simple Man’s course and coaching on BiggerPockets.com, an online forum with the tagline Real Estate Guru, Book & Course Reviews and Discussions. The comments were posted between one and six years ago. You can read it for yourself.
Here are a few isolated comments from the thread.
–It is a little bare bones by today’s standards, in other words no flashy graphics or photos of gorgeous ladies pointing to piles of money. The info seems like solid educational material. It’s not advanced, but it is covering all the bases. (Mark Hudson, CA, 5 years ago)
–Bill Vaughn is awesome, drills it down. (Brian Gibbons, CA, 2 years ago)
A year ago, a wholesale investor from South Carolina posted an articulate and calm assessment of the Simple Man’s course on the Bigger Pockets thread. Here are a few points I pulled out from his lengthy posts:
· The contract creation software is solid and well worth the price of the course.
· [Bill Vaughn] gave me some great advice [during the coaching call].
So there you have it, my friend.
To sum up, Bill Vaughn’s program appears to be solid, with good, foundational material. Some real estate investor reviews find parts of Vaughn’s real estate course to be out of date, at least as of reports from one year ago. This may have changed since those reports were posted.
One distinctive feature of Vaughn’s program is the offer of free and unlimited email coaching by professional real estate investors who are motivated by a desire to give back. This does set Vaughn’s program apart from many others out there. I wouldn’t hesitate getting his course. I think it could be valuable in your arsenal of readiness for the REI world.
Longevity in an industry doesn’t always mean a person knows what they’re doing, but in Vaughn’s case, it seems to. He may not be up on all the latest tricks and strategies, but the fact is that he knows all of the basics and more, and he’s been a successful real estate investor and coach for longer than some of us have been alive.
He’s a guy worth paying attention to. Want to get his course? Bill Vaughn’s course here.
Thanks for reading my review.
Best of luck!
Paul
