One of the earliest get-rich-quick real estate gurus to understand the power of the late night TV infomercial was Tom Vu. By the way, his real name is Tuan "Tommy" Vu.
You just could not escape his sales pitches for creative real estate courses in the 1980s and 1990s. Not only were they terrible, they were funny. Here is one captured on YouTube. In broken English, this Vietnamese-American waiter-turned-real estate "millionaire" surrounded himself with mansions, yachts, helicopters, and especially lots and lots of big breasted women in bikinis pitching his foreclosure and motivated seller home study courses and seminars.
I used to watch the ads just to marvel at his audacity, especially when he would insult his audience calling them "losers" for not ordering his $1,000 products.
Well, Tom Vu has long departed the real estate world. The answer why is obvious. The sun does set on all creative real estate gurus and their empires.
Today, Tom Vu is, drumroll please, a professional poker player in Las Vegas. Here is his page at the World Series of Poker website. Apparently he's a very good poker player and has won millions of dollars at the tables.
He now lives in Las Vegas and you can find him playing poker at the casinos downtown most nights.
In just another trek down creative real estate guru memory lane, remembering the phonies of the past and the con artists of the present. At least Tom Vu didn't wind up in Federal prison like William McCorkle or sued into bankruptcy like Joseph Kaiser. That's one good thing I can say about him.
Robert J. Abalos, Esq.
