Real Estate Riches

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Great inspiration - Rated
The book is certainly an insight into property investing, and why propertyt is a good vehicle for financial reward. After considering a few options I have decided to pursue property and have not looked back. A few colleaugues have gone down the stock market route and my investment growth far outstrips their's, with a fraction of the hassle. Yes it is risky (any investment is), but this book is a roadmap of the pitfalls. I read it again and again, it is an excellent reference book.

Advantages of Real Estate over Stock Investing - Rated
New Zealander Dr. de Roos learned about investing in real estate while he pursued his education in electrical and electronic engineering. A few weeks before getting his Ph.D., one real estate deal netted him $35,000. His best job offer was to earn $32,000 a year. He thought. Why bother? And so began a full-time real estate investing career that led to him teaching real estate investing with Rich Dad, Poor Dad author, Robert T. Kiyosaki. Both played Monopoly as children, and found the real thing even more fun and rewarding as adults. From those experiences, Mr. Kiyosaki reports that "Dolf de Roos walks his talk." For fun, they will go out looking at property together in Phoenix where they both live now. "If driving around town looking at properties is a chore for you, then property is probably not for you," says de Roos.

In simple comparisons, Dr. de Roos shows you how property investors can earn hundreds of times the returns of stock investors. He had noticed as a young man that many rich people either made or kept their money in property.

Some of the advantages over stocks include greater stability in value, ability to borrow almost all of the purchase price, tax laws that allow deducting expenses for depreciation on an appreciating asset, potential to buy below market value, possibility of making improvements that add value beyond their cost, opportunity to refinance to extract cash without selling the asset, cash income to cover carrying costs, little need for day-to-day supervision because you can hire property managers to take care of almost everything, and real estate values moving up consistently.

The drawback of real estate investing is that you will invest a lot of time getting started. For example, you will probably have to look at 100 properties to possibly buy one. If you want to earn a living from real estate investing, you will look at many thousands of properties before you will have enough invested to become inactive. During those beginning years, you can be vulnerable to problems with renting or fixing specific properties, finding time to be your own property manager before you can afford one, and setbacks during times of rising interest rates or falling property values.

Having established the potential benefits in part one, part two goes on to describe what you need to do. It begins with finding property to look at, looks at analyzing potential deals, recommends how to negotiate and submit offers, shows how to use more of other people's money and time, describes improvements you should look to make, and explains the risk of government involvement.

After reviewing Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I got lots of questions about the tax advantages of real estate investing. For people who do not understand the subject, this book won't be enough. Although it has a lot of case histories, this book doesn't do any of them in enough detail for a reader to see exactly what happens throughout the investing and ownership process.

This book also is accurate only if you pick locations where prices move up annually at a pretty consistent rate. Although one of the eight rules is be a countercyclical investor, the book needs to emphasize how much more money you make when you buy at the peak in an interest rate cycle and refinance at the bottom of the same cycle, and how the economic cycle affects pricing of property and your ability to rent it. Also, you need to take advantage of trends. With the aging of people born after World War II, this will mean a shift in where property is attractive in the decade ahead from communities where it's a good place to raise children to those where it's good to retire. There's a vague allusion to these issues in the book, but much more is needed. For example, a new factor like foreign terrorism in major U.S. cities could have a large effect on future property values in those cities.

After you read this book, think about what allows you to sleep best at night about your finances. For some, that will be part in real estate. Invest in what gives you the best return in piece of mind, as well as income!

Poor E-Book - Rated
After numerous attempts to download this ebook I am still none the wiser.

I downloaded Adobe then tried the ebook which told me to activate which did not work.

Went through all the help items in Adobe and still cannot get the ebook.

Very Poor - expected more from Amazon and Adobe !

Don't do it - refuse e-books - Rated
The e-book failed to download via the Amazon link when it came through into my e-mail so I waited a day before trying again. Then it worked and re-directed me to Adobe for 'activation' of my Acrobat Reader. This failed with some web error code.

I can't be bothered with this, Abode - chill out and relax about this e-book thing OK? If you are gonna do this at least make it *work*. Too much hassle, buy a dead tree version.

I still have yet to read this book because of these 'technical advances'.

Ouch my neck aches - Rated
The content of Real Estate Riches is very American, and this book often refers to the USA Tax system. Having said that, it really opens up your mind to the opportunities that exist now.
This is not a 'get rich quick' book. Mind you if I had known what I know now, back in 1992, I would be a multi millionaire (echo's of Del Boy). Well this book has inspired me to take action.(better late that never).
I have read a few books by Robert T. Kiyosaki, the best known is Rich Dad Poor Dad, in which this subject is mentioned. Real Estate Riches is one step further and more in depth than the others.
My only gripes are that ebooks are a pain to read, you can't forward the ebook to another PC eg work. You can't print any of it off either, e books are a pain. But the book its self is great.