Back to all stories

Mortgage financial advisors pushing risky loans

Original source

In the fall of the year 2005 and when the real estate market was going crazy and all kinds of real estate investors were giving speeches and masquerading as advisors, I attended a local seminar about real estate investing.

I already had my rural land property/investment business model developed and most of my current advisors in place. A mortgage broker was speaking about loans for real estate.

These so called mortgage financial advisors were recommending people take interest only loans to fund their real estate purchases because the rates were low and it cash flows easily. There are many problems with this dumb advice.

Here are some:

  • Debt at some point has to be paid back. Anybody who has done any investing and used debt with real estate, stocks, or a business knows this. Delaying indefinitely paying off a debt is foolish.
  • Even if an interest only loan for any type of investment cash flows today, it might not tomorrow, next month, or next year. The investment might quit paying. For example:
  • The tenant lost his/her job. The property flip did not work as the foundation crack was not discovered during the euphoria when the property was bought. Funds (from more debt) were needed to fix the crack when an engineer who looked at the property to buy it discovered it.
ISSUES
Deceptive Practices
Incorrect Advice

Related Horror Stories

Is your financial advisor stealing from you?

Read full story

What are some signs that your financial advisor is stealing from you?

  • They don’t provide timely statements of activity on your account.
  • They give you excuses if you want to move money around.
  • They can’t explain withdrawals from your account.
  • They can’t provide third party account statements to support internally reported information.
Read more
ISSUES
Deceptive Practices

My REIT Nightmare

Read full story

What's the dumbest piece of advice a financial adviser has given you? Put your money in this “safe” REIT…. lost half of it AND the fund was “frozen” when the banks did their nasty back in 2008; had to wait for 5 years to get even that back.

Read more
ISSUES
Incorrect Advice

Trading My 401k for a Questionable Insurance Policy

Read full story

It was once suggested to me by a “financial advisor” to cash out my 401k and reinvest it into a whole life insurance policy.

Read more
ISSUES
Incorrect Advice
Conflicts of Interest
Read more stories

Share Your Story

Have you had a negative experience with a human financial advisor or other human “financial expert”? Share your story to help others avoid similar issues. Together, we can shed light on the importance of reliable, unbiased financial advice - its been a big motivator for us to build PortfolioPilot.

Shield icon representing anonymity protection
Don't worry, stories are anonymous!
Thank you for adding your story - we'll review for compliance reasons and post it in the next few days!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.