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The Wall Street Journal. Complete Real-Estate Investing Guidebook
The conservative, thoughtful, thrifty investor’s guide to building a real-estate empire.
Profitable real-estate investing opportunities exist everywhere as long as you know what to look for and understand how to make prudent deals that transform property into profits. David Crook, of The Wall Street Journal , shows how to make safe and sane investments that ensure a good night’s sleep as your real-estate portfolio grows, your properties appreciate and your income increases. The Wall Street Journal Complete Real-Estate Investing Guidebook offers the most authoritative information
• Why real-estate investing is a great wealth-building alternative to stocks and bonds and why it’s crucial that you avoid get-rich schemes
• How to get the financing and make the contacts to get started
• How to start small and local, be hands-on and go step-by-step with a vacation home to rent out, a pure rental property or a small apartment building
• How to find and value great properties, do the numbers and ensure you have that beautiful thing called cash flow
• How the government blesses real-estate investors with tax breaks and loopholes, and how you can be one of the anointed
• How to deal with the nuts-and-bolts of being a landlord and have a strife-free relationship with your tenants
Profitable real-estate investing opportunities exist everywhere as long as you know what to look for and understand how to make prudent deals that transform property into profits. David Crook, of The Wall Street Journal , shows how to make safe and sane investments that ensure a good night’s sleep as your real-estate portfolio grows, your properties appreciate and your income increases. The Wall Street Journal Complete Real-Estate Investing Guidebook offers the most authoritative information
• Why real-estate investing is a great wealth-building alternative to stocks and bonds and why it’s crucial that you avoid get-rich schemes
• How to get the financing and make the contacts to get started
• How to start small and local, be hands-on and go step-by-step with a vacation home to rent out, a pure rental property or a small apartment building
• How to find and value great properties, do the numbers and ensure you have that beautiful thing called cash flow
• How the government blesses real-estate investors with tax breaks and loopholes, and how you can be one of the anointed
• How to deal with the nuts-and-bolts of being a landlord and have a strife-free relationship with your tenants
257 pages, Paperback
First published December 26, 2006
68 people are currently reading
321 people want to read
About the author
David Crook
143 books4 followersDAVID CROOK is the editor of The Wall Street Journal Sunday, the personal finance section that appears in more than 60 papers around the country.
David's "Real-Estate Investing" book was published in 2006. His "The Wall Street Journal Complete Home Owner's Guidebook," which is to be published by Three Rivers Press in late 2008.
David was part of the original team that developed and launched the highly successful “Weekend Journal” of Friday’s Wall Street Journal. He also developed the “Home Front” and “Property Report,” the Journal’s residential and commercial real-estate sections. He was a writer and editor for many years at The Los Angeles Times.
Born and raised in Memphis, Tenn., David has lived and worked in New Orleans, Washington, Los Angeles and New York. He and his family have homes in Manhattan and Litchfield, Conn.
David's "Real-Estate Investing" book was published in 2006. His "The Wall Street Journal Complete Home Owner's Guidebook," which is to be published by Three Rivers Press in late 2008.
David was part of the original team that developed and launched the highly successful “Weekend Journal” of Friday’s Wall Street Journal. He also developed the “Home Front” and “Property Report,” the Journal’s residential and commercial real-estate sections. He was a writer and editor for many years at The Los Angeles Times.
Born and raised in Memphis, Tenn., David has lived and worked in New Orleans, Washington, Los Angeles and New York. He and his family have homes in Manhattan and Litchfield, Conn.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
July 21, 2015
I read this book because I wanted to understand the mechanisms with which people make money through real estate, and it definitely succeeded. My takeaways are that there are four main ways that people make money on real estate that they own. There are the ones I expected: rental income and appreciation, these are straightforward.
I was completely unaware of the huge tax advantages that can be available to real estate investors if they're able to jump through some specific hoops, specifically depreciation and 1031 exchanges.
Depreciation is where you write off the cost of a structure on the land you've purchased over 27.5 years. So let's say a rental house costs you $500K, and the structure on it is worth $400K, with straight line depreciation you can deduct $14,575 every year in rental income. That's huge!
Even crazier is the 1031 exchange, which allows you to (again, with a list of caveats) sell an income or business property and then buy another *without paying capital gains taxes*. In this way you can trade up to larger and larger buildings without losing your capital in the interim. The author quotes an accountant who calls the 1031 exchange the "last great tax shelter left".
I could have jettisoned the chapter on REITs entirely, and this book could generally use an update as it's written just before the housing collapse.
This book gives some examples and uses real numbers, but mostly it's an overview of different ways people make money with real estate, and a lot of the numbers are dated. Crook doesn't get into the finer details, so as a "how-to" guide it's lackluster, but as someone completely ignorant it is approachable, broad in its coverage of real-estate topics, and written in a style that makes an otherwise dry topic compelling.
I was completely unaware of the huge tax advantages that can be available to real estate investors if they're able to jump through some specific hoops, specifically depreciation and 1031 exchanges.
Depreciation is where you write off the cost of a structure on the land you've purchased over 27.5 years. So let's say a rental house costs you $500K, and the structure on it is worth $400K, with straight line depreciation you can deduct $14,575 every year in rental income. That's huge!
Even crazier is the 1031 exchange, which allows you to (again, with a list of caveats) sell an income or business property and then buy another *without paying capital gains taxes*. In this way you can trade up to larger and larger buildings without losing your capital in the interim. The author quotes an accountant who calls the 1031 exchange the "last great tax shelter left".
I could have jettisoned the chapter on REITs entirely, and this book could generally use an update as it's written just before the housing collapse.
This book gives some examples and uses real numbers, but mostly it's an overview of different ways people make money with real estate, and a lot of the numbers are dated. Crook doesn't get into the finer details, so as a "how-to" guide it's lackluster, but as someone completely ignorant it is approachable, broad in its coverage of real-estate topics, and written in a style that makes an otherwise dry topic compelling.
August 22, 2013
This was a supremely informative book that delved into every aspect of the basics on novice real estate investing. Emphasis on the novice part. This book is merely a starting point for any serious investor and is far from a how-to manual. Tips and tricks are footnoted throughout, but the author says from the beginning that this isn't a get rich quick book or scheme. It's educational, worth reading and most definitely recommended.
May 2, 2021
The Skinny: Strong introduction tuned for real estate beginners. It has plenty of useful knowledge, good humor, but not a whole lot of depth.
The Good: I enjoyed this book. I thought it covered a lot of the big areas of real estate and its many intersections with personal finance and wealth building. A quick and enjoyable read.
The Bad: It was obviously written as more of an introduction rather than a guide, so the title to me is a bit of a misnomer. It has plenty of examples but often they are quite simple and lack depth. This should certainly just be one of many books you study up on the subject with. Given it was written write before the GFC, I think a revision is due to make this more in step with the current era.
I also just personally hate how they setup the pink insets. There are a lot of them and they throw off the flow of your reading.
The Good: I enjoyed this book. I thought it covered a lot of the big areas of real estate and its many intersections with personal finance and wealth building. A quick and enjoyable read.
The Bad: It was obviously written as more of an introduction rather than a guide, so the title to me is a bit of a misnomer. It has plenty of examples but often they are quite simple and lack depth. This should certainly just be one of many books you study up on the subject with. Given it was written write before the GFC, I think a revision is due to make this more in step with the current era.
I also just personally hate how they setup the pink insets. There are a lot of them and they throw off the flow of your reading.
February 10, 2018
Content delivered as promised
This is a non-fiction how-to book and had the information I was looking for in a clear and concise format. It was written in 2005 but is generic enough to still be very helpful and did not appear outdated except it completely predated the burst in the housing bubble. As stated, it is written to be pretty generic so a more up to date book is needed for recent tax law topics in particulr.
This is a non-fiction how-to book and had the information I was looking for in a clear and concise format. It was written in 2005 but is generic enough to still be very helpful and did not appear outdated except it completely predated the burst in the housing bubble. As stated, it is written to be pretty generic so a more up to date book is needed for recent tax law topics in particulr.
March 20, 2018
Insightful.
He makes real estate investing easy-to-understand and even a little enjoyable. The only reason I don’t give this five stars is because they haven’t done an updated version.
This was written in 2006 so it feels outdated at times when it mentions newspaper ads and the waning boom. I’ll give it to him that he does comment that the boom of the early 2000s was a fluke. Still would like a second edition with some hindsight.
He makes real estate investing easy-to-understand and even a little enjoyable. The only reason I don’t give this five stars is because they haven’t done an updated version.
This was written in 2006 so it feels outdated at times when it mentions newspaper ads and the waning boom. I’ll give it to him that he does comment that the boom of the early 2000s was a fluke. Still would like a second edition with some hindsight.
December 3, 2018
Just getting my start in real estate investing so I don't have much to compare it to but I found it a solid introduction if a bit outdated. A good read alongside Matthew Desmon's Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.
April 12, 2018
An outstanding book of real-estate investing!
August 9, 2024
3.5⭐️
Pretty solid overview for real estate investing and it was interesting to read since it was written right before the housing crash in 08
Pretty solid overview for real estate investing and it was interesting to read since it was written right before the housing crash in 08
March 9, 2017
Fascinating read with a primary focus on smaller, multi-family units. So much of the writing in this genre is scammy, get-rich-quick-ey, and just plain trash. Good book if you're interested in the subject.
Also, worth pointing out that this book was published at the height of the real estate boom - and the author took a very bearish stance of the market at the time. Brownie points for foresight.
Also, worth pointing out that this book was published at the height of the real estate boom - and the author took a very bearish stance of the market at the time. Brownie points for foresight.
May 9, 2008
I trade commodities for a living, but I know precious little about other aspects of the investment world, so I conducted my own Spring seminar by going to the library and picking out a small stack of investment books, and this is the first one I read. It's a solid primer on the fundamentals of the real estate market, and it is relatively well-written, particularly compared to some of the crap that passes for business writing. While it didn't give me any brilliant investment ideas, it did provide me with a host of simple criteria that may serve to keep me out of trouble, which is probably at least as valuable.
May 28, 2009
I got this book free in business school and thought it was worthwhile. People that have real-estate knowledge likely will not benefit from reading it. Me, I had no knowledge and skipped a prerequisite for an advanced class. I read it in two days and while I hadn't been caught up, I wasn't lost.
If you are thinking about purchasing a home and know nothing about real estate, read it. Otherwise, don't.
If you are thinking about purchasing a home and know nothing about real estate, read it. Otherwise, don't.
September 25, 2007
This is a very easy to read, comprehensible introduction to real estate investing. It's not about getting rich quick, or making a million with no money down. It's about how to take advantage of real estate investing through smart, cautious strategies, and it's a great book for anyone looking for a smart way to invest their money.
September 11, 2015
I very fine introduction to investing in real estate.
October 10, 2020
Comprehensive, educational, boring. Lots of info.
December 5, 2017
Skimmed it for my essay, but great read.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews