Is Clever Investor a Scam? – In-Depth Review

What Is Clever Investor?

• Name: Clever Investor
• Focus: Real Estate Investing
• Creator: Cody Sperber
• Price: Varies greatly ($28k at most!)

Overview

Clever Investor is a company created by real-estate investor Cody Sperber that provides various educational products to help make money in real estate. These include courses, mentorship, business automation software and more. The products provide lots of in-depth content and Cody has even went as far as to get house flipping stars from HGTV to help create one of his products.

The focus here is mostly on what he calls "creative real estate investing", meaning ways to invest in real-estate that are creative and that many people may not have heard of before.

The company does have an A+ rating with the BBB (not that this means a whole lot) and lots of good reviews from customers. This is good to see right off the bat, but there are some complaints as well, which I'll be discussing later.

Who Is Cody Sperber?

Cody is a real estate investor who practices what he preaches. He claims to have made over 1000 deals in his life worth over $200 million.

He has over 14 years of experience in what he calls "creative real estate investing"--and this is what he looks like... holding a check of course...

Sometime it can be difficult to know how much you can trust someone after only seeing them online, but he is the real-deals... and has been featured on Forbes, Entrepreneur, and other media outlets.

Just don't let all the hype get to your head. Besides being experienced in real estate he is also one heck of a salesman, which I'm sure you picked up on. 

Products & Services

The "Clever Investor" is just the brand behind it all... and there are 6 products that are offered. These include:

• Fast Track Profit System
• 30 Day Deal Challenge
• Clever Investor Mentoring
• Your First Flip
• Deal Automator
• and Direct Mail Dealmaker

1) Fast Track Profit System

Here you get the 6-step system that Cody and his team have developed. This is said to be the "most complete educational course ever developed".

You will get access to over 20 video/audio trainings, a business plan, the legal contracts needed, checklists and more.

The core of the training is broken down in to 6 modules:

• Module 1 - Getting Started
• Module 2 - Marketing and Lead Generation
• Module 3 - Deal Analysis and Negotiation
• Module 4 - Property Acquisition
• Module 5 - Funding Your Deals
• Module 6 - Closing Your Deals

There is a lot covered in this training, many different ways to make money in real estate... some pretty creative such as flipping houses without buying them and without renovation, creative lease options, renting properties and building wealth, and more.

There is a heck of a lot provided here. You get the different action plans, the legal paperwork needed, checklists on what to look for in a good deal, and even things like comparisons of different lenders that you can use when funding deals.

2) 30 Day Deal Challenge

This is a 30 day challenge that is supposed to get you in profits within 30 days... flipping houses without ever buying them and without renovating.

Here you are provided with a step-by-step action plan for 4 weeks that will hopefully get you to have your first sale in that period of time. You are also provided with all the legal paperwork you will need and extras, such as negotiation tactics Cody uses to get good deals.

Promotions for this seem to be everywhere at the time of me writing this and I'll be talking about this challenge in more detail soon. It is promoted as being "free" but this is a bit misleading.

3) Clever Investor Mentoring

This mentoring service can be purchased in conjunction with other products or all by itself.

Here you will get assigned one of the mentors on the Clever Investor team to... well... be a mentor. They will help keep you accountable and provide support for questions and whatnot--and are real estate investors themselves who actually know what they are doing.

There are different levels of mentoring provided and they range in price greatly.

• #1 - Total Immersion costs $28,000
• #2 - Protege Program costs $14,000
• #3 - Apprentice Program costs $7,000

You are definitely going to need some serious cash to buy into this. Based on reviews the mentors are very knowledgeable and can provide a lot of help, but may not be too concerned with your endeavors.

4) Your First Flip

This is described as "the complete house flipping system" and is a step-by-step course that goes from knowing nothing to making your first flip.

Cody Serber partnered with Ken & Anita Corsini from HGTV's show "Flip or Flop Atlanta" to put together this course.

The course is laid out in 6 different modules:

• Module 1 - Get In The Game
  • Basically an overview of everything and getting started.
• Module 2 - Find a Flippable House
  • Focus on finding houses that meet the requirements of being "flippable".
• Module 3 - Analyze Your Deal
  • Here you learn how they analyze their deals before spending any money.
• Module 4 - Acquire The Property
  • The process of buying the property.
• Module 5 - Rehab The Property
  • Renovating the property and their advice/tips.
• Module 6 - Cash In On Your Flip
  • Lastly, of course, selling the renovated property.

5) Deal Automator

This is described as "all in one real estate investing automation". Basically what you get here is automation software for finding discounted deals, capturing buyer and seller leads, analyzing properties and more.

This definitely can make things a lot easier and will also help beginners with identifying good deals, capturing leads, staying organized and ultimately making sales. There are 9 different features that this software has:

1. Instant Motivated Seller Lists - This automated feature scours various different listing websites for house listings that you can filter in different ways. Cody claims that this literally looks at every home listing in the US.
2. 1-Click Lead Generation Sites - This is a website builder so that you can create an easy website to capture leads. It's very simple to create a website with this, but your site will be very basic.
3. Instant Comp Generator - This feature analyzes properties and gives you value estimates. You can use Zillow, but Cody claims that this site sucks, and that his software uses a lot more data from more sources to provide more accurate estimates.
4. Deal Analyzer - This feature allows you to find properties, plug them into the software and see if they are good deals. What you do is plug in a bunch of data about the property that the software provides you with, and then it tells you whether or not it's worth a deal. All sorts of stats will be provided.
5. Automated Conversions - You will get access to automated follow-up message software that will automatically follow up with leads via email, voicemail and even text message. You also get direct mail templates that Cody developed.
6. Point and Click Contract Generator - This provides all the different forms and allows you to customize contracts easily. 
7. Step by Step Deal Organizer - Here you can keep all your deals organized. It provides all the necessary contact information and a task list... and a "scrum board" where you can easily manage multiple deals without getting confused about what step you are at in each.
8. Exit Strategy Optimizer Tool - This tool tells you what investment strategy will make you the most money. It shows potential profits and side-by-side comparisons on the different strategies.
9. Qualified Buyers on Demand - This tool automates the selling process. It will automatically publish properties for sale on multiple websites.

6) Direct Mail Dealmaker

The Direct Mail Dealmaker is all about making deals by sending good old fashion direct mail... and is described as "push-button direct mail fulfillment".

Basically what you get with this product is Cody's distribution and printing connections so that you can get direct mail sent out without actually having to send it yourself, and you get the system created that will allow you to find high equity properties, eviction notice properties, inherited properties, distressed properties, pre-foreclosure properties, and other type of properties that will likely have people looking to sell.

I'm not entirely sure how true this statistic is, but he claims real estate millionaires get 90% of their deals from direct mail... and there is no doubt this form of marketing still works.

A Look at The 30 Day Deal Challenge

The 30 Day Deal Challenge is being promoted heavily right now and I know it's very popular so I want to talk more about what exactly this is for a second.

As you know, it's a "creative" real estate investing method where you "flip" houses without ever buying them or doing renovation. What you do is acquire houses at a discount and then sell them for higher prices, earning the difference.

With this 30 day challenge you get step-by-step guides and an action plan for each week, flashcards, negotiation scripts, the contracts needed to make deals, etc... it's a well-rounded program.

The 3 Step Process

1) Find Deals That You Can Flip

I don't know how true this statistic is, but Cody claims that at any given time and at any given neighborhood in the US there are about 5% of homeowners looking to sell quickly and at a discount.

He calls these people "motivated sellers" and this is what you want to look for. These sellers are usually experiencing some sort of hard times where they want money fast and don't have time to wait for a sale at full price.

After finding these kinds of sellers Cody has different creative ways of contacting them with your offer, such as by mailing postcards. 

Potential Real-Life Example: You find an older house that is listed for $160k but is potentially worth $200k. The owner's spouse has large hospital bills that need paid and it needs to be sold fast, so the owner is willing to let it go for $145k.

2) Controlling The Deals

The next step is to get control of the houses you are interested in, which is done via Purchase and Sale Agreements. These contracts give you control of the property... but at this point you still haven't paid for anything.

If you join the program you will get all of the different contracts that might be needed when going through this process.

Potential Real-Life Example: You then get the seller to fill out a Purchase and Sales Agreement, which is used for advanced sales transactions. It is a written agreement between buyer and seller to complete a real estate transaction... but you aren't actually buying anything at this point. So at this point you would get an agreement from the seller to let the house that was listed for $160k go for $145k.

3) Flipping and Getting Paid

The last step is to flip the deal and get paid.

In this step you will advertise the property that you have control of... which is a house that is potentially worth a lot more than it is being sold for. The types of people interested in these properties are probably going to be people who will want to renovate.

Once you find a buyer you sell the house... which let me remind you... you haven't even purchased.

You do this by filling out another form called an Assignment Contract, which will facilitate the property sale between the owner and end buyer. 

Potential Real-Life Example: Now you advertise what you have... which is a house that is potentially worth $200k. If you get anything about the $145k in your Purchase and Sales Agreement, you get profit.

The Process In a Nutshell

This is totally different than what you would normally think of when you think of flipping houses. You are jumping in on a good deal and reselling for more money... without ever buying any houses or doing any renovations.

You could argue that there is no real value provided in this sort of transaction, but then again you will be helping people looking for quick cash get that quick cash by selling their homes at lower prices.

Breakdown of Weeks 1 - 4

• Week 1 - Focus On Learning
  • Learn about how it all works--how to generate leads, negotiate, put the deal together, etc.
• Week 2 - Practice
  • In the second week you will start to practice what you've learned in the real world.
• Week 3 - Acquiring The Property
  • In week 3 the hunt is on... and you will be utilizing Cody's negotiation scripts to hopefully make deals. As you know, there is no money required to acquire the property with this method.
• Week 4 - Cash In
  • Now it's time to find a buyer and connect them with the seller. You are the middleman and you get paid the difference.

The Cost

The cost is not free, as the promotional video may lead you to believe. In the promotions talks about how you will be getting all sorts of stuff for free, but the cost to begin the challenge is $97.

Prices

When you are lured into the sales funnels that Cody and his team have in place it is difficult to find the prices. Usually you are registering for lengthy webinars (pre-recorded by the way--NOT LIVE), joining "free" training and whatnot before ever finding out how much the darn program/product costs.

Luckily for you I've done a lot of digging around and a lot of sitting through lengthy webinars just to try to find out the prices of everything offered by Clever Investor... and here they are...

• Fast Track Profit System 
  • $297
• 30 Day Deal Challenge
  • $97
• Clever Investor Mentoring
  • $7,000 - $14,000 - $28,000 depending on level purchased
• Your First Flip
  • $497
• Deal Automator
• Direct Mail Dealmaker
  • $97

*Note: With many of these programs you are also pushed to purchase the "Professional Member's Area" for $97/mo... but this is optional.

Refund Policy

So... what if you end up buying one of their expensive products and find out that this just isn't for you?

There is no shame in quitting if something just isn't a good fit.... but what are the terms of this? Are there refunds?

Yes there are. If you want to read the refund policy you can find it in the Terms of Service page. It would be nice if there was just one simple refund policy for all of the products, but there isn't. That said, most of the products come with a 30 day trial, where you can request a refund and get your money back within 30 days if you are not satisfied.

These refunds are said to be "unconditional".

Support

Support is a big deal when it comes to programs like this, especially for those who are beginners and might need some extra help.

Luckily there is a good amount of positive feedback on the support provided from past members, such as this student who makes a pretty convincing argument...

That said, there is no mention as to what product he bought into. He might have bought the most expensive level of the mentoring program which I would expect to provide exceptional support based on the sheer cost.

The mentoring program is going to provide you with the most support.

Customer Reviews/Complaints

Overall the feedback from customers who have purchased different Clever Investor programs has been very good.

I already mentioned that there are many good reviews with the BBB and on other sites like HighYa it's the same story, where they have a 4.7 out of 5 average rating and 93% of reviewers say they would recommend it to a friend.

There are a lot of customers who have been more than happy with the layout of the courses and the support provided. In particular the costly Mentorship services have gotten some great reviews from people who claim it undoubtedly helped them take their business to the next level and that the mentors seemed to really care about them.

However, there have been some negative reviews as well, such as:

Disconnect - As with a lot of expensive "make money" programs that are promoted in somewhat ridiculous ways, I have seen some complaints from people talking about how they feel the mentorship has a feeling of disconnect to it--meaning that there is a feeling the mentors don't really care all too much about your situation because it doesn't effect them and they already got paid.

*I guess not all of the mentors are on the same level.

Misrepresentations - There are some customers who feel they have been mislead with what the products include, prices, etc. I can see how this would be a problem based on the overly-hyped promotions.

Poor Support - Although most people will tell you that the support has been more than stellar, some people disagree...

And that's pretty much it. There are some other types of complaints, such as paying for a product and not receiving it, but this seems to be a technical error that isn't likely to happen.

Overall the reviews are very good and this means a lot... because if the program was poor I'm sure people spending hundreds and even thousands of dollars would be more than willing to fill online complaint boards with negative feedback... but I don't see this going on.

What I Like/Don't Like

What I Like

• Lots of products and different methods for investing in real estate covered in the programs.
• Well laid-out programs with step-by-step directions and action plans.
• Lots of value provided with the training and tools.
• Content provided by real professionals in the industry... people like Cody who know what they are doing.
• Don't need a real estate license to get started - low barrier of entry.
• Some pretty creative techniques for real estate investing that many people have probably never heard of.

Also, while it may seem like all of these programs are just big money-grabs based on the promotional material, they aren't. The Mentor program proves this well... since instead of just accepting everyone's money who wants to buy into this expensive program they require you to apply and don't accept you right away... which means that they aren't in it just to make as much money as possible.

What I Don't Like

• Marketing for these programs is a bit over-the-top and ridiculous.
• Sales funnels are confusing and suck you in without really knowing what you might be getting involved with--but I guess that is just a good sales funnel.
• Cody has that hyped-up very "salesy" personality and his voice can get pretty annoying in the videos (just an opinion).

Earnings Disclaimer - How Much Money Can You Really Make?

Of course the promotional material you find being advertised all over the place makes this course seem like you are going to become some millionaire. Cody loves showing off his riches and claims that he "doesn't do this to brag" (I think he does) but the bottom line is that these types of promotions might give people the wrong impression.

Of course results are going to vary greatly person to person. Some people just aren't all that well cut out for real estate investing while others are, and many already are licensed real estate agents with years of experience.

This is why at the bottom of the Clever Investor website there is a disclaimer in incredibly small print that reads "Any statements of income or earnings are either examples or estimates of potential income and should not be considered typical."

*Note: I had to zoom in to 150% to read this disclaimer... it was in very small print.

There is also a link to another earnings disclaimer in which a study was performed by Clever Investor to find out how well their students were actually doing. 

The Earnings Study: In this study they emailed every customer of the Fast Track Profit System product to find out how the participants were doing. After 501 students responded, here are some statistics that they found out:

• Experience in real estate
  • 46.9% 0-6mo 
  • 17.3% 6mo-1yr
  • 9.8% 1-2yrs
  • 10.7% 2-5yrs
  • 15.3% 5+yrs
• Licensed real estate agents
  • 12.7% (39/307)
• Time Spent
  • Approx 50% spent less than 3hrs per week with the program
• 43.6% (122/280) spent money marketing trying to generate leads
• 11.1% (31/280) have made money in real estate since using the program
• 67.9% have completed a Quick Flip (wholesale) for an average of $19,772 (out of only 13 responses)
• ​​50% have completed a Fix and Flip (rehab) for an average of $21,500 (only 9 responses)​​

When first coming across these statistics I was surprised at how good the results looked, but after looking at them more it appears to be a very incomplete set of data.

There were 501 students total that responded from the Fast Track Profit System course but very few responded to some of the questions... such as those on how much money they have made.

These statistics give you an idea of what is possible, but in no way tell you what is average or typical overall... due to the overall lack or responses obtained by Clever Investor in this study.

So unfortunately it really doesn't tell you much.

But again... the bottom line is that you shouldn't expect to be making boatloads of money like the promotional material that is out there would lead one to believe.

Is Clever Investor a Scam?

I think it's pretty clear that it isn't.

While the marketing by Cody and his team may lead one to believe it's all a scam at first, it is far from it. They really provide a lot with their various products.

Conclusion - Worth Buying?

Okay, so let's do a quick recap here first:

• Clever Investor is an educational company created by Cody Sperber that focuses mainly on less conventional, "creative" ways to invest in real estate.
• Him and his team provide a number of different products under the Clever Investor brand. These include step-by-step courses, mentoring, automation software and more.
• The marketing is very flashy and often shows Cody cashing massive checks, showing off his riches, sports cars, etc.
• There is no guarantee that you will make any money but most students seem to be more than happy with what they've received, based on high ratings with the BBB and HighYa.
• Products range in price greatly... anywhere from $97 to $27,000 for the top tier of the mentoring program.

So are any of the products worth buying into? Well, this is a heck of a difficult question to answer and would depend on your situation, what product you are looking at, how much time you can put into it, etc.

But overall the Clever Investor does provide some very well put-together courses and is something that should be considered if you are looking to get into this kind of real estate investing.

So anyways... Now it is your decision! I hope you enjoyed this review and found it helpful.

Before you leave, since you seem to be interested in working for yourself and having flexibility, you might also be interested in taking a look at this internet marketing program I've been using since 2015... and still use to make a living online.

Just a thought!

Also feel free to check out my massive list of 72 ways to make money from home or some of my top income ideas for making a home-based income.