Hello, my friends and welcome to another episode of Ask Marco where I answer your investing related questions.

Today's question comes from Joey, is it worth paying a coach or mentor? He says, hello Marco. My name is Joey. I'm currently 24 years old and looking to get into passive real estate investing. I've been looking hard for a mentor recently I found a local company, I won't mention the company's name here in Arizona, which is where I currently live. They will have open houses Saturdays for the rehabs they are doing and we'll have many events during the week. I attend, I attended one and found out they are partnered with a company called Renatu's, I believe that's how you pronounce it, R E N A T U S and they didn't seem to be a part of that company, but they show their prices ranging anywhere from $2000 to $20,000 prices as in like a tuition is what I believe he's saying here.

What am I asking is what's the best way to find a mentor and is it worth paying for this type of coaching? They seemed legit and the people who were leading this as well as the members seemed like they were enjoying working together. I don't want to pay an amount, I shouldn't just for networking. Thank you for your time.

Joey, this is a great question. I actually did a Google search for Renata's and I just wanted to learn about them and I don't know much if anything at all about who they are. In fact, I think I came across them years ago, but I pretty much never hear about this company. And again, I want to be very clear that I am not saying it's good, bad or, or otherwise I am indifferent. But when I did a Google search, the first page of the search results were a bunch of things about people asking is Renatus a scam.

The Better Business Bureau was one of the first things that came up. Renatu's reviews is Renatu's the real deal or a scam on Bigger Pockets, uh, Renatu's LLC complaints at the Better Business Bureau, all that kind of stuff. But that doesn't necessarily suggest that, you know, the are a bad company. I want to be clear that I'm being very indifferent here. You need to do your own due diligence and research and check online to see what other people are saying and what you can find out about them. However, having said that, I want to comment on a couple of things. Uh, first of all, I don't want to talk about Renatu. I want to answer your question, but I do want to point out that although some people feel that the company is a bit of a pyramid type system, they really have people who join Renatu's that get paid to recruit and bring in other people.

So they have a very high tuition, but it looks like a good percentage of that tuition is paid back out as a referral fee or commission to you as a member to bring in other new students into their education program. And it actually says here on the about us page on their website that you will get paid from a $1000 to $10,000 in commission simply for helping them grow and enroll new students into their education program. So whenever I read that, I get a little bit suspicious, you know, my, eyebrows go up and uh, I pay a little bit more attention because I realize that there is another motivating factor to bring you in. It's not always about the education or the mentoring or coaching if that even exists. It really plays heavily in people, psychology, and psyche when they're getting paid up to $10,000 in commissions for recruiting you.

And that's why it can feel like a pyramid scheme, if you will, to some people. Again, I'm not saying, you know, it's good-bad, I'm being indifferent. You have to do your own research. Personally, I would not pay that, uh, that  $20,000 to join, which is what I'm going to get into here. To answer your question and your main question is, is it worth paying for a coach or a mentor? What I'm going to say is this, first of all, regarding networking, networking typically, and usually not always, but usually,