Utah ‘guru’ preached keys to wealth, then went bust

April 9, 2011, 4:10 am

For those who attended Mike Watson’s seminars on investing in real estate over a four-year period beginning in late 2004, the Mapleton man was a contradictory mixture of a spell-binding, inspirational speaker and a salesman of pure hokum.

His time on stage at seminars around the country ran from messianic zeal to mockery, to bullying, to rages and to tears.

Here was a man who, after all, was selling rebundled property-investment wisdom, along with a pack of lies, according to lawsuits and interviews with people who paid him thousands of dollars to learn the secrets of real estate investing.

Investors poured in $27.5 million on assurances from Watson that he had never lost money on a deal. Then in 2009, Watson stopped making interest payments and didn’t return investors’ principal.

Now, Mike Watson, 41, is in the legal cross hairs of state regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and is the defendant in various lawsuits.

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Starting out » Watson, who through his attorney would not comment for this story, studied psychology at Brigham Young University and mowed lawns for a property management company, according to one of his books. It was while riding a lawn mower that, inspired by the money his parents were making by investing in real estate, Watson says he decided to do the same.

He bought his first property, and after finishing college, became a real estate agent and did some investing of his own.

Property Management