Property Ladder - UCD Course

Re: Property Ladder

muzaway said:
People at mondays session were asking questions of the gentlemen from Hooke and MacDonald and were quick to point out instances where they were simplifying matters or only pointing out the upside.
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Why pay €150 for the privilege of correcting somebody's biased sales pitch when the money could arguably be better spent on obtaining truly independent information and advice? Seems a bit of a waste to me.
 
I went to an exhibition in the RDS last March and they had seminars on throughout the day. The content is probably similiar to the UCD course.

I got two free tickets for the exhibition at Citywest this weekend. (I think it's $15 entrannce without a ticket) According to the ticket they'll have seminars running throughout the day covering Law, Tax, Maintenance, Rentals, Tourism, Finance, Pensions, Building, Travel.

I found myself that alot of the info presented is quite general and as mentioned earlier on the thread it's when good questions are raised during the Q&A that the seminar normally gets interesting.

Anyway one of the presenters at the RDS John Howell (I think he presented continously!) runs a firm of solicitors based in London who specialise in European LAw. They have made all their presentation material available on their website. Pdf and powerpoint files. They cover most of europe.

But the best part is, it's free!!
www.europelaw.com
 
Well that explains it!

As I was heading up to J104 with around 10 others to do my Latin course, I wondered what was happening in Theatre M to attract such a motley crew, not normally the type of people attending the extra-mural courses in UCD.

I do find it astonishing that UCD would give the status of education to what seems like a giant sales pitch. In the brochure it gives no indication that the course will be given by sales people. The course director is a Mary Fitzgerald, but it does not give any information about her in the "Your tutors" section.

Brendan
 
Yeah when I saw the names I was surprised too that it was on in UCD. It's clever of them to put it on in a respected uni and charge for it because that makes it look like a real course. If it was on in a hotel and free, people would immediately see it as a sales pitch. However, I think there is surely a lot of good to be had out of it so for anyone who has paid their money and signed up, then good for you, ask all the right questions and as long as you know that they have a vested interest then you can take what you want out of it. It will surely be of some benefit.
 
A Mary Fitzgerald (I presume it's the same one) actually organises one of the annual big property seminars. I'm not sure if it the ones at Citywest or the RDS.

I would imagine directing 'Educational Courses' is not her main line of business.

You have to admit though, it's a clever little earner on her part. I'd say none of the contributers received a fee and the punters paid €150 each for glorified sales pitches!

Nice one.
 
I did a google(selected Ireland sites only and searched for Mary Fitzgerald PR) on our Mary to see what I could find. She certainly gets around!
Shes a PR consultant and her contact details are

Tel: 01-4321 560-Dublin Office
Mobile: 086-2520181
e-mail: mefitzgerald@eircom.net

She'e been doing a number of 'Educational Courses' over the last number of months here are a couple of examples

“Horses for Courses” A Course on Horseracing in Ireland
Department of Lifelong Learning, University of Limerick
[broken link removed]

“Location, Location, Location”
Property Investors Course (Spring Semester)
Director:
Mary Fitzgerald, Press, Public Relations, Marketing Consultant
[broken link removed]

She's also involved in a recruitment agency
[broken link removed]

Now the most interesting thing is that she is the PR and marketing manager of the Eurpean Consumer Centre Dublin. www.eccdublin.ie

This organisation amonsgt other things provides advice information on consumer rights. The legal advisor is a Barry Fitzgerald but that may be a co incidence. On the contact page our Mary uses 'O'Reilly'. Perhaps her maiden name. It mightn't look good to have two Fitzgeralds on the contact list. These PR people don't get paid the big bucks for nothing!

Mary's contact detials at the EEC are:
Mary Denise Fitzgerald
European Consumer Centre
PR & Marketing Manager
01 8090607
086 8057339
maryd@eccdublin.ie

By the way the ECC is co-funded by office of the Director of consumer affairs.


Now according to the Marketing Services directory [broken link removed]

Mary Fitzgeralds company, well at least Fitzgerald Communications is certified to a whole rake of codes of practice including

THE MARKET RESEARCH SOCIETY (UK)

ESOMAR

CODE OF ADVERTISING STANDARDS FOR IRELAND

THE IRISH DIRECT MARKETING ASSOCIATION

THE MARKETING INSTITUTE OF IRELAND

INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS ASSOCIATION

THE EUROPEAN PUBLIC RELATIONS CONFEDERATION

GRAPHIC DESIGN BUSINESS ASSOCIATION

ASSOCIATION FOR QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANCY ORG

IRISH INSTITUTE OF SALES PROMOTION CONSULTANTS

WAPOR

THE INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS IN IRELAND

I wonder would all the above organisations approve of the promotion of the Property training at UCD?
 
I was looking at doing 1 or 2 of those evening courses, particularly the Importing & Exporting Trade and the one about understanding the Stock Market.
Anyone do any of these, and if so any comments?
 

There was a picture of Mary in yesterday's SBPost.
Mary, the property promotor, was standing with a politician and a senior executive from the media.
All happy and smiling.

Says it all really ! but for completeness they should have added a bank executive.
 
Is there something wrong with the noticeboard/thread board today? Has anybody noticed anything strange? It seems to indicate to me that a reply was posted under "Property Ladder" at "11.48 a.m. today" but the last post I see there is one I posted myself some days back. Is there something wrong with the clock and calendar??
 
Can't see any problem with the site/server. Try clearing your brower's cache or forcing a refresh by pressing the Ctrl and F5 keys at the same time.
 
Muzzaway

What did you think of last night's "class"? Wasn't Noreen really very good? I thought she was very enthusiastic without being too biased. I feel better now about all that money I've spent in Bulgaria!!
 
Andrewa said:
Muzzaway

What did you think of last night's "class"? Wasn't Noreen really very good? I thought she was very enthusiastic without being too biased. I feel better now about all that money I've spent in Bulgaria!!
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No offence, but this seems ludicrous to me. You're paying to attend sales presentations which make you feel better about past investments!

Why not just hand over all your money to Mary straight away and ask her to look after it for you?
 
Hi Andrewa,
I thought she was interesting and her general tips on what to look out for when assessing a potential investment were valid, but I would have liked to hear her pointing out some possible downsides as well.

She did mention that the development in places like Sunny Beach was fairly un-regulated in comparision with places like Croatia and Montenegro, but I'd like to hear of who has actually made money in Bulgaria...it seems that most of the gains there are on paper so far.

Is there a re-sale market and are investors receiving a rental income on their properties?

Her statement that Bulgaria is increasingly where Irish people are now going on their hols just doesn't ring through to me.

I thought the valuer was very interesting and was glad to see him saying that property is not the only way to invest and that things can and do go wrong as I'd be worried that some of the presentation are pitching more towards Speculation than investment and are only showing the upside. I'd like to see more folks like him presenting.
 
Been to Sunny Beach, no shortage of new apartments for sale all over the resort, estate agents offices everywhere! Everywhere you went here where signs selling apartments and building sites with signs announcing new developements. That's what I noticed when I was over there.
 
RainyDay said:
No offence, but this seems ludicrous to me. You're paying to attend sales presentations which make you feel better about past investments!

Why not just hand over all your money to Mary straight away and ask her to look after it for you?
Click to expand...

No offence taken! Actually I'm not paying to attend a presentation to make me feel better about past investments. I'm paying to learn, and I'm learning. However, if I feel better about past investments in the process, should I apologise?? RainyDay - take a chill pill!!
 
Hi Muzaway
Yes I noticed the reference to regulation there, and, of course, it's fairly new and therefore unproven. It does seem to me however that by the time a country or a region becomes a proven good investment it's almost too late. Like the guy said last night "If you can see the bandwagon (or badwagon?!) it's too late". Rainy Day is having a bad hair day - I do hate begrudgers - don't you?!
 
Andrewa
You're the one doing the course, so will probably know more than me, but would my observations from my time spent in Sunny Beach not perhaps indicate that the bandwagon is speeding through this region?
My wife was seriously perplexed with the amount of development in the area and the amounts of property which was available for sale.
 
I didn't feel bad about it before the course. I felt very good about it. I feel even better now!
 
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