Real Estate Investing “Celebrities”. Puh-leeze.

From this months issue of Business Week:

The theme music from Star Wars played as Bill Rancic, the first winner of TV's The Apprentice, bounded onto the stage. Rancic told his life's story. How he made money selling pancakes to his grandmother's friends as a 10-year-old. How he quit his dead end job selling commodities and built a successful cigar-of-the-month club, despite snickers from his old bosses. Then, facing off against Ivy Leaguers and MBAs, he came out on top of one of the most popular reality shows in the country, winning the right to supervise the construction of a 90-story condo building Chicago for none other than Donald Trump.

I've got nothing against Bill Rancic. In fact, I'd probably say I'm pro-Rancic. The part of the article that bugged me was the next paragraph.

Rancic's appearance was sandwiched between that of Wayne Gray, who was selling a $4,000 DVD and software package to help folks get rich in tax liens, and James "Mr. Real Estate" Smith, whose pearls of investment wisdom included this observation: "What do you think Jesus did for a living? He was a carpenter — directly related to real estate."

Thank you, "Mr. Real Estate". Out of curiosity, I Googled "Mr Real Estate" and found tons of names. I stopped after John Mudd, Bill Curtin, Rod Stone, Carleton Sheets, Mel Rutherford, Tim Plate, Dick Mathes and George Paukert. I tried www.mrrealestate.com and got Larry Rahn, from Vancouver. I could have kept adding to the list, but it got old quick. I never did come across James "Mr. Real Estate" Smith.

George Paukert might have been my favorite. His site has "…realest8…" in the address. Plus, he looks exactly like Steve Buscemi. I also found the song "Hey, Mr. Real Estate Man" to the tune of "Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man".

Jesus had nothing to do with Real Estate. C'mon now, James "Mr. making up Scripture" Smith. Do a little better than that.