You’ll remember we commented on the collapse of Inside Track a couple of weeks back, in the course of which I also mentioned Whitney UK, which runs courses educating Britons in how to profit from property. The post prompted a flurry of responses, including one telling me I was being brave after the event, and that nobody mentioned these companies while they were still in business … and one from the MD of Whitney UK, which very much IS still in business. Iain Edwards (for it is he) politely but firmly pointed out that Whitney had zip in common with Inside Track, of whom he was very scathing, arguing that the outfit created a ‘dependency’ culture, whereby customers relied on Inside Track for their properties, their profits, while learning nothing themselves about developing, improving and renting out property.
‘Come and see for yourself’ they said, and so a few phone calls and emails later and I find myself booked on to a Whitney UK ‘Train the Trainers’ day, the trainers in this case being property investors who work with Whitney on their property training courses. The stipulation by Whitney is that they must be investors themselves, which makes sense to me, as I’d rather be receiving instruction from somebody who actually has bought, improved and rented out a property. I hasten to add though, that this is not one of the Whitney seminars, so I can’t comment on how those run, but I was pleasantly surprised by company. There were talks on new building and rental regulations, discussions on how tax and other matters affected private landlords … and there was plenty on how to do well during the currently dreadful property market in the UK.
Disappointingly short on Rachmann or Rigsby types discussing how now to shaft their customers and tenants, the debate focused more on how the trainers could continue to deliver a decent product to attendees. The demise of the 100 per cent mortgage (and the rest when the whole gifted mortgage thing comes into play) was roundly acknowledged too. And the relentless enthusiasm of the speakers (among them a former sheep farmer turned one of Wales’s biggest private landlords) was rather infectious. And not tub thumping American enthusiaam, but good-old British tongue in cheek enthusiasm. Being unremittingly positive types, of course, they were relentlessly looking for opportunities in a falling market - and they are there, and I have no problem with that.
You can’t get away from the fact that Whitney UK is selling a product to attendees, and you can’t deny it doesn’t come cheap. But, but, but … these are big investments, and though all the information may be out there in the public domain already you’d have to dig some to find it. I rather greedily snaffled some useful titbits about the Land Registry and other stuff which I wouldn’t have got elsewhere. So a useful ‘club’ to be part of I would say, and with no guarantees or talk of ‘get rich quick’. As ever, it’s caveat emptor.
