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My advice is to stay away from Daimien and his Integrity Property Investment Mentors. I have typed a lengthy thread about my poor experience on another thread in this forum. DANGER DANGER.
Just out of curiosity, who ran the Property education seminar you attended a few years ago?
My experience in using integrity property mentors was very poor and financially very costly. The CEO of the company, who calls himself ‘Australia’s Number 1 property investment strategist’ sat me down and told me how he can structure a real estate portfolio that would see me holidaying in Majorca (his words) because I would be raking in the cash. His strategy (which I subsequently believed) was to buy a negatively geared property in Gladstone and a negatively geared property in Dysart, because the monster rents I’d receive will be beyond belief. The CEO assured me that he had undertaken thorough research of the local markets and there was ‘virtually no risk’ (again, his words). I found out after the fact that he had built in 10s of thousands of dollars in undisclosed commissions from the sale of the Gladstone property through a local builder and the land developer. The end state was that I now have negative equity in both properties and rents come nowhere close to covering costs. My lessons learnt with Integrity Property Investment Services (now calling themselves Integrity Property Investment Mentors) are as follows:
1. Their ‘extensive research’ of the Australian property market is nothing special and offers no guarantees of success. You can get the same speculative forecasts from a property investing magazine.
2. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight I found their real estate tips to be very flawed logic. Statements such as ‘real estate always eventually doubles in value in a property investment cycle’ and ‘to be successful in real estate, buy where its booming, simple’ is not good advice for anyone seeking an honest education in property investment.
3. The CEO and his staff have real estate licences, not a financial qualification, and as such are not legally obliged to ‘act in your best interest’. Hard selling me a high risk portfolio was not in my interest but definitely their’s.
4. Ultimately it was my terrible judgement in listening to Integrity Property Mentors strategy that got me in financial peril. I accept that. This post is to warn any prospective clients to be very aware of the advice they receive from this company.
5. The company discontinued communication with me once they had their commission. I can only assume they were chasing other clients and didn’t have time for me anymore or it was cut and run. Either way, I did not have ready access to my property mentor.
6. As part of their education program, they will offer to set you up with specially selected properties. Be aware that they will have tagged on 10s thousands dollars in undisclosed commissions. They will also offer no guarantee that the property will be a financial success, other than their ‘integrity’.
7. Integrity does not mean honesty or acting in your best interest. If you are convinced of your own moral compass, then by definition you have integrity.
8. Quite a few of their real estate tips are nothing more than motivational finance quotes to designed to motivate you to invest (in their property stock of course).
9. When dealing with me, they connected me with their finance and legal experts to mentor me into the portfolio. Their choice of mortgage broker was tardy and apathetic in sourcing loan applications. When I raised this with the CEO, his exact words were ‘it’s your responsibility to chase up your own finance’. Great mentoring support from a company that ‘mentors’ you to a property portfolio.
10. Give integrity property mentors a wide berth if you don’t want to be given poor service and terrible decisions that are financially costly.
11. The CEO seems to be extremely sensitive to negative criticism of his business and his ideology. This can be construed as ‘defending his integrity’ or as I have observed, defending his business model in an attempt to maintain its legitimacy.
12. It’s ultimately up to an individual whether they attend these ‘seminars’ but be very aware of their reputation and that they are ultimately real estate agents looking to sell you their property stock at an inflated price because ‘they have integrity’.
13. Do your own research and get qualified advice before even listening to this mob. A little effort on your part will save potential financial misery.I am Familyman and put a comprehensive response here on my experience in dealing with integrity property mentors, but it seems to have been taken down. Negative criticism of bad businesses is not a reason to remove. Indeed, scam watch.gov.au even encourages personnel to get the word out in dodgy property investment companies. Removing my post is disappointing but I will say that integrity property mentors should be avoided at all costs.
