It can be confusing. Knowing who you can trust in this day and age is not always straightforward and easy. Especially when there are so many out there claiming to be the bomb-diggity real estate guru extraordinaire who pitches their latest seminar like a lottery ticket to a new you.
Today I wanted to do a review for you on Jim Huntzicker’s Offering.
Jim Huntzicker is the founder of the Real Estate Investor Academy. He is a real estate investor himself, and He coaches people on how to do real estate investing.
My question to you is, “What has you looking up Jim Huntzicker in the first place?”
Jim Huntzicker: my INTRODUCTION and Foreword:
If you are like me then you probably recognize that the way you are “doing life” isn’t exactly what you thought it’d be when you got out of high school.
There have been many times where I have wondered if my best days were behind me. I became especially present to this when I was working at a job in the medical industry that I no longer aligned with when it came to values, dreams, and desires.
Maybe you get up in the morning and you wonder what your day will be like. Between making yourself presentable and eating your quick grab-n-go breakfast, you secretly salivate over the idea of sliding back into your bed and pulling the sheets over your head in a fetal position until your woes are replaced by whimsical dreams.
Or maybe you just want to ditch work altogether.
You KNOW…I bet, if your employer gave you a three hour lunch, they might find you at a local movie theater or headed to your favorite dive for an escape from the humdrum.
But there is no such luck in a J-O-B, you are stuck until they release you.
You are there to produce at least eight hours a day or like many you might simply be looking for work. Downright shocking how many people are unemployed or underemployed.
HOW IS THIS GONNA GO?
I’m gonna tell you why I don’t think REI is all it’s cracked up to be based on my experience and then I am gonna give you the real deep down skinny on Jim Huntzicker.
FIRST
I have to applaud you! Let me say that again I want to congratulate you!
-WAY TO SHOW UP with a huge COMMITMENT to taking on something new and finding A WAY to get OUT of the RAT RACE.
Maybe you have heard it said that most people who are wealthy either hold it in real estate or have gotten it through real estate.
Think Donald Trump (check out my article on Can You Be Trump Rich? and Robert Kiyosaki.
Maybe you’re like me and you feel hopelessly optimistic about delving into the real estate investing world. The bottom line is you need to make a living and a good one at that.
>>That was me years ago as I decided to jump into real estate investing.<<
I remember buying my first rental property and going through seven different renters in that first year.
I don’t believe any book seminar or guru could’ve gotten me ready for what I was going to experience out there in real world real estate investing.
The thing I wasn’t good at? Hard to write it ‘cause I really want you to like me and think I have it all together. Well… I was a nice guy, which was a big problem in REI.
The renters Took advantage of me. And because I’m a hardcore people-pleaser at heart, I let them do it.
I ran my real estate investing business so poorly that it got me into foreclosure, bankruptcy and ultimately contributed to divorce.
Believe it or not this review is not a doomsday message on Jim Huntzicker or any other guru. The only thing that I want to introduce you to is what I do now. I believe in renting out digital properties instead of real estate properties.
The principal is pretty much the same.
You see, up until the point that I found the right mentor, I had no clue about all this.
Enter James and Dan. You can see some of their coaching program here. They showed me exactly what to do.
The digital properties I own produce leads and calls every day.
The best part is that local business owners are willing to pay me for those leads.
—I simply needed to know what to do.
Alternatives to Real Estate Investing that won’t break the bank.
You can watch the videos here to learn more or you can skip them all together and go down to my review.
As far as I am concerned Jim is a great guy. However, I am not willing to throw my hat in that ring again now that I found this.
Reviewing The Real Estate Academy and the Man Behind the Huntzicker Home Selling System
So today we’re talking about a guy named Jim Hunsicker, a real estate investor out of Northern Illinois.
Huntzicker has been a real estate investor since 2007 and a licensed real estate agent since 2006, working in the Chicago area and its suburbs.
When he started out as a real estate agent, he went into it with a lot of energy and drive. He was set on helping investors buy and sell the rehab properties. But the longer he did that the more he realized that he wanted to be in on the action as well. He wanted to do investing not just selling to investors. He saw the income potential in investing, and that’s where he wanted to be.
So then he began his own real estate investment company called Yellow Star Properties. His main focus is residential redevelopment, or as the rest of us call it, rehabbing. He buys, renovates and sells residential properties. He and his team do 10-14 rehab projects per month. To date, they have done over 450 projects.
His focus is to find distressed houses in decent areas, fix them up and resell them. He is also willing to buy investment properties from other investors– in other words, do wholesale deals. Huntzicker is not a buy-and-hold guy, nor does he do turnkey deals.
In 2011, Huntzicker started coaching for a national real estate investment education company. Some of the clients were brand-new investors and some of them were seasoned investors looking for new ways and systems and better their own existing businesses. He worked for this education company for a number of years and then decided to begin his own education company, called RealEstateInvestorAcademy.com..
Real Estate Investor Academy Component
Real Estate Investor Academy provides a number of participation possibilities, depending on your investment interests.
Huntzicker’s company acquires properties and creates turn-key investments for clients who want to go that route rather than do the hands-on work of buying, rehabbing, and selling (or renting) themselves.
Investors who have money and want to get into the lending side of things can do that through RealEstateInvestorAcademy.
And then there are coaching opportunties available. Huntzicker works one-on-one with a small number of clients. However since there are always more people than he has time for, he has also launched a group coaching program.
The main course/seminar-type of offering that Huntzicker has is a video program called MLS Domination. This is for new and seasoned investors alike, he says.
A Look at Jim Huntzicker’s MLS Domination
MLS Domination is a six-module online course that teaches investors how to use the multiple listing service to find properties and locate deals. Hunsicker describes the MLS as the largest list of motivated sellers that an investor will ever find.
- Module 1 of the MLS Domination course covers fundamentals that include proper communication, market research, accessing the MLS, setting up proper searches, and how to comp properties.
- Module 2 covers market research: how to do it, how to know your numbers, how to evaluate deals, looking at the scope of work, figuring out repair estimates, and writing offers.
- Module 3 covers finding the right agents and staying off the agent blacklist.
- Module 4 talks about deals of various kinds: estate sales, regular sales, court ordered sales, short sales, reactivated sales.
- Module 5 talks about wholesaling the MLS as a buyer or seller. This would be of special interest to people who want to wholesale rather than buy for rehabbing or long-term rentals.
- Module 6 is all about money: how to find it, private money, hard money, and self-directed IRA’s.
At the time of this writing, the MLS domination page on Huntzicker’s site (jimhuntzicker.com) was closed. I found it on another site called tutspecialoffer.com. The original price is listed at $997, but it’s currently marked down to $87.
So in terms of offerings, this would be the main thing that Huntzicker has for investors who are looking for training .
There is one book available that Huntzicker has put together. This is called “Real Estate Investing Rock Stars,” published in 2015. This is a compilation of reviews of real estate investing coaches. It’s available for $10 from affiliate vendors on Amazon.
In terms of a social media presence, Huntzicker has four YouTube videos, all posted one year ago.
As you’re analyzing Huntzicker and his Real Estate Investor Academy business, keep in mind what your own goals are. It seems that you can find good help through Huntzicker in quite a few areas, although not all.. He seems to have a competent team of people.
He doesn’t have a lot of home-study materials or books or tutorials, other than the video program, and this product area seems to be one place where he falls short of other investor coaches out there.
In terms of standing with the Better Business Bureau and other similar sites, Huntzicker is in the clear. I could find no reports from dissatisfied clients.
Conclusion: I find no reason to not pursue working with Jim Huntzicker if you are set on it. Overall his product offering is solid.
Good luck.
