books

This is what I want to read properly in the new year :

‘How I Turned $1,000 into Five Million in Real Estate in my Spare Time’ – William Nickerson
Long before the current mania for “zero down” real estate seminars with flashy gurus making wildly exaggerated claims about real estate this book defined the basic formula for wealth building with real estate. This is a genuine real estate classic. It doesn’t talk about lease options, weird financing arrangements, finding the mythical distressed seller so you pay only 50% of the valuation of a residence etc. Instead it tells you something far more basic, boring and simple. Buy slightly run-down properties (against the equity on your PPOR) renovate them cheaply and sell in a couple of years for a 25% profit. Givens and countless others have done the same. John T. Reed’s site reviews where famous real estate authors or gurus ended up. Nickerson is one of the few famous real estate gurus that didn’t end up broke or jailed.

Renton’s Understanding Investment Property – Nicholas Renton
Renton has written books on the real estate and the stock market, so you won’t get the “shares are highly risky and the returns are so bad you won’t even beat inflation but property is a completely fool-proof way to become a gazillionaire” propaganda that most real estate authors put out. This book covers risk and negative gearing a lot better than most. It talks about property as an investment class worthy of inclusion in a portfolio – as opposed to extolling its virtues while bashing all others.

Investing in Residential Property – Peter Waxman and Dennis Lenard
Goes on about economic cycles and tax laws and various things that will bore most real estate fanatics to tears. Shakes investors out of the get-rich-quick spell cast by most real estate authors who spin (? dangerous) stuff about borrowing to the hilt to buy a huge property portfolio so you can retire a multi millionaire in 5 years.