well, I have to admit, most people who tell you online about how to become rich, are, in fact, rich.

But they still fail to find out about what made them rich in the first place.

For example, there is a German real estate millionair, who does online courses to tell people how he got so rich.

He talks hours of hours about how he learned the right trade and how he invested his money in flats he bought and improved etc.

In his first lessen he talks a bit about his past and says "The only thing you got to do is to buy a flat and get someone to rent it! I did it like this, I simply put in 50k€ of insurance money I got from an accident."

The whole thing is done with this. I mean he literally told the audience "You simply need 50k to get rich!"

Buying real estate and renting it out might actually be the most reliable way to build wealth. You need to be in a market with steady growth, which is true of many desirable cities. You need some starting capital, which most people could earn through a few years of steady work and frugal living (probably have to hold off on having a family unless you have high income).

It's not a "get rich quick" scheme by any means, though, and managing properties is still work. I know more than one retiree who has built up 8-figure wealth this way. Of course, it took them a lifetime.

Most people who tell you online how to get rich got rich by scamming people into buying their "Insider tips on how to get rich for the life you deserve" content.

For someone with a talent for online marketing, it's almost the easiest money there is.

Right - and the wider context is that he started doing this at a time when banks flooded the world with credit and lots of other factors saw huge land price inflation.

You get this in the UK all the time, property shows where people "do up" a dilapidated property over 6 months, then relist it. And guess what? It's gone up! It's gone up by labour cost + materials + background land price inflation. But they see it as a wise "investment".

> guess what? It's gone up! It's gone up by labour cost + materials + background land price inflation. But they see it as a wise "investment".

If you put your own capital and work into something, and its value increases... that's what an investment is.

No they are adding zero value, they are riding off the corrupt system and taking labour from others.

Also in most casts they are not putting capital in, they are borrowing from a bank who create the debt. They are little more than outsourced debt collectors.

You specifically state that they are adding value. Going up by labor and materials means value has been added.

Yes but my main point is that the primary gain was on the land due to govt policy. These people are typically amateurs who basically paint a wall. Unskilled labour plus a few $K in materials == not much. Yet the gains are significant.

While I agree with the sentiment, part of me wonders if this isn't this the same as asking why the top NFL coach doesn't make all the touchdowns himself?

Often they used to, or at least, played the game at a high level. In other cases the answer is that they lacked the physical ability. There is no such barrier to making money.

Well you could say there's an intelligence (Social/emotional/IQ) barrier to making lots of money. Those with the growth mindset will say that there's nothing innate about intelligence and it's pure effort, but I'm not completely sold on that.