Ken Wade’s Housing Alerts review

Aunty was subscribed to Ken Wade’s Housing Alerts because it seemed like a good idea.  I believe Frank Chen of REI Club sent me a link (affiliate link in which he gets a percentage of the sale) and I sat through a very long, rather tedious webinar that showed a super simple way of gauging whether a particular real estate market was in a transitional period (not a particularly good time to buy or sell but okay for rental income) or in a wealth phase (great time to buy and make money).

Ken is a chart freak and loves charts of every type.  He discovered that the candlestick method along with moving averages tell a great story about the ups and downs, or ins and outs of real estate investing – kind of like it does for the stock market, only much much slower.

For $99/year, you get to track one city, for $197/year you can choose 3 cities, and the price gets higher the bigger and broader the market areas you decide you want.  If I recall, $1997 will get you the entire United States and some extras such as market reports from Ken Wade himself from time to time.

Aunty picked Las Vegas (surprise, surprise), Honolulu, and Indianapolis as her 3 cities.  All three cities were in the transitional phase – not a good time to get in the market.  Vegas was recovering from an all red phase where all the indicators short term, mid term, and long term were red.  Red is not good, the market is not in recovery, and not a good time to buy.  The more recent quarters had a few yellow and even occasional green indicators, but not in the long term columns, which meant the Vegas will still not a good market for investing for the buy and flip investors.

Indianapolis and Honolulu were almost like Vegas in the readings – transitional, not good for investing yet.

Because I bought the cheap $197/year 3 city package, I only had access to the wealth phase chart and the green, yellow, red dots indicators.  In the beginning, I was an avid watcher and would check and check the wealth phase charts and indicator charts over and over to find that these charts didn’t change at all, for at least 3 months because they were quarterly charts.  The updates didn’t show up until 50 days after the quarter ended – if I wanted to see the December 2011 quarterly period, the update didn’t show up until mid or late February of 2012.

There were a few market news reports that were a bit of sales pitching, and because I was not enrolled as a regional or national member, I was not able to access the more useful and timely market reports on the current areas in movement.  However, somehow I gleaned that Bismarck North Dakota is moving right now from one of Robert Kiyosaki’s live events when he mentioned buying land and developing rental apartments in the Bakken area where fractal drilling of oil is the hot job creator and growth opportunity.

I had the Housing Alerts program for a year, and then noticed a charge on my credit card for $197 – an automatic renewal of the 3 cities enrolling me for another year of slow quarterly charts and sales pitchy updates.  I emailed and asked for a refund in order to cancel my membership.  After an initial refusal, then some muscle of  – really, I want my money back – they obligingly refunded the $197 as a credit on my card.

Just today I received an email from Ken Wade with a free downloadable ebook entitled “Go Broke Investing”.  I went to the website, clicked on the send it to me button with my email address, and received the book in my email account.  It is easier to go through than his super long, very monotone webinar pitch, and it does have good information about past markets and the usefulness of charting.  Throughout the ebook are links to his marketing webinar or site “in order to learn more.”

Here is a link to his promotion:  GoRealEstateDeals.com which will ask for your email address in order to send you the “Go Broke Investing” ebook.  This is a rather aggressive website that will ask you several times if you are sure you want to leave the page, so just insist you do and you are out, or sign up and get the ebook, along with many follow up marketing emails which you can opt out of at any time.

Would I recommend this program?  It depends.

Aunty is an impatient person.  Watching a pot of water come to boil on a stovetop is torture for me.  Because the Housing Alerts program is based on quarterly reports, it is only updated once every 3 months, and after a 50+ day lag.  And, because it is real estate, movements are small and not dramatic as they are in the stock market.

Another point – Aunty is kind of cheap.  Instead of buying the national package with all the big cities in the nation, the option for 3 cities at $197 appealed to the pocketbook, but was limited to – 3 cities (duh)!  This option did not provide me with access to bigger studies and timely reports.  Being stuck with just Indianapolis, Vegas, and Honolulu felt like wading in jello.

I believe this is a program for patient people who are willing to shell out $1997 per year for many years.  All of Ken’s marketing lessons show fantastic possible returns IF properties were bought and sold in the wealth phases.  The most recent wealth phases occurred just about everywhere, about 5-10 years ago.  I dunno about you, but that kind of information of looking backward doesn’t benefit me today.  Perhaps there are a few cities that are actually entering the wealth phase right now.  I wouldn’t know since I don’t have that kind of access.  All I know is that Indianapolis, Las Vegas, and Honolulu are all in the “transition” phase of staying out of the market (which Aunty is NOT doing as it concerns Las Vegas).

Ken Wade does do a fantastic job of charting, market momentum with moving averages, and simplifying the process of understanding with easy visuals.  However, for Aunty, it’s too slow.  It is like playing Keno and the numbers take an hour each to post, versus Aunty’s game of choice – Craps, one of the fastest moving games in the casino.

In summary, it is a good program, rather expensive on an annual basis, and takes years to gauge benefits, and not for Aunty.  If Ken Wade did individual stocks or commodities with his simplification of red light/green light for the cheapos – Aunty might subscribe.

 

8 thoughts on “Ken Wade’s Housing Alerts review

  1. Hello Aunty , this guy Ken Wade is really a slick talker with all those charts , he had me fooled ,I really thought he was sincere , glad you opened my eyes before making a commetment, thank you very much

    • Aloha Oswald!

      Actually, I think Ken Wade is very good at what he does. My peeve is that it takes so long for his quarters to be updated – several weeks after the quarter ends. It is very valuable for investors who are interested in markets outside of their own local areas, but the more areas you want, the cost goes up. I haven’t looked at his program in years since I stopped my subscription. I don’t feel that I need it since my investing is now focused in Hawaii, where the pickings are slim.

  2. I saw this on privatemoneylending.org and was definitely considering buying. I didn’t know if I would be able to convert that information into instant profit. I guess if I had the money to invest nationally I could do it from anywhere without learn that local market.

    • Aloha Elena,
      I am not sure if they still have a free trial period – at least you would get a peek into the cities that you were interested in. However, BE WARY of the time limits to the free access and be sure to CANCEL before the free trial period is over, otherwise you will be charged. When I signed up, I was planning to try it for a couple of years. It was really too slow for me and when I got charged for an additional year, I called their customer service and was promptly refunded and the subscription was cancelled, so I would also say that Ken Wade has ethics and is not a rip off artist who only takes.

      Beware of “instant profit” and get rich fast schemes. The only ones who get rich and profit are the ones selling these programs to you. Be willing to take a longer time and slower results to get rich – remember, the turtle won the race and the rabbit had a long way to catch up.

      Aunty

  3. Thank you Aunty, your review has been so helpful. I would have purchased the same program, as I would not have been able to afford the larger program. Yes, I would have been most disappointed with the results as you were. I live in the Henderson, NV. area and I believe there are some deals to be had. I will continue to seek information so as, not to get into something that will not be beneficial to my family, however, I want to still be involved and will continue to seek good information. Thank you again for being so honest with your opinion.

    • Aloha Rea!

      Glad you found the review helpful. It could be a good program but it was frustratingly slow to get updated quarterly changes, and for me, it was a great way to look back, but not so great a way to guess forward.

      I love the Henderson NV area! I follow it via Homepath alerts as well as getting updates from my Vegas realtor, Martin Fajardo of Robinson and Associates Realty. The past few months showed a great jump in appreciated value and interest was intense! It seems to have cooled down recently, for which I am glad. Henderson is a great part of Las Vegas – a good place to live, and lots of trees!

      Mahalo for your visit and comment, hope to hear from you again,

      Aunty

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