Course review – Glenn Armstrong

If you have been to any Property Networking events recently, then you may have come across Glenn Armstrong.

Glenn’s background is as a businessman and entrepeneur – in which he’s been very succesful. However, a few years ago, he turned to property, and applied his skills and drive to build a huge portfolio very quickly. (Over 60 properties in 2 years.)
The secret to his success was his use of creative Below Market Value techniques – ways of identifying vendors who value things other than the highest headline price, and then coming up with creative solutions to give them what they want or need.

I’ve used BMV techniques myself (and written about them on the yourpropertyexpert.com free newsletter), however, Glenn has done a lot of work putting together a one day training course based around his own experience of what has worked, and what hasn’t. I went along to the course a couple of months ago.

Glenn is based in Milton Keynes, and the course I attended was based there, so relatively good transport links. The “amenity factors” were well done – a good hotel, big enough training room (for about 25 attendees) and good quality food and drinks both in the morning and at lunch.

However, it’s the content that drives people to training courses, not the food – and this is where Glenn excels.

Some property training is presented by “salesmen” who are great at standing up in front of the room, but have no real experience of the material, so aren’t always that hot when it comes to questions. Glenn is presenting HIS material, based on HIS experience, and the depth of knowledge shows.

There have been some criticisms (not from me) that buying BMV only works “if you take advantage of people”. Glenn clearly demonstrates on the course that the only way to complete deals is to concentrate on helping people. Whether that means driving to court with them, or paying their legal bills, or negotiating with credit card companies on their behalf.

At £500 the course isn’t cheap, but compared to some (US) courses that sell at 10-40 times that amount, it looks reasonable.

Likewise, if you end up learning a technique that will shave an extra £10,000 off your next purchase, then £500 feels a tiny amount to spend.

Of course, going on the course won’t make you succesful in buying BMV (any more than going on my course will make you a good negotiator.) The only thing that will do that is practice – but if you’re serious about moving into property investment, and are prepared to treat it as a business rather than as a hobby, then investing a day of your life in finding out WHAT you need to do makes sense.

• Book Glenn’s course