Investing in Real Estate

by Paul McGreevy, Gary W. Eldred

THE BESTSELLING GUIDE TO REAL ESTATE INVESTING
Now in its fifth edition, Investing in Real Estate is the straightforward guide that helps you start growing your fortune by investing in houses and small apartment buildings. Successful real estate investor Gary Eldred shows you how you can outperform the stock market by investing in residential real estate--the surest and safest way to build assets.
This updated edition covers all the new trends and tactics in real estate investing, including how to shop for properties outside your home market and how to use option arms to achieve positive cash flow. As always, you'll find all the information you need to start investing now, as well as up-to-date tips on negotiating deals, spotting market trends, and using the Internet as a research tool to find and buy properties. Let the authors show you how to:
* Buy with a low or no-money down payment
* Build wealth without paying income taxes
* Find the neighborhoods and properties that will appreciate fastest
* Add value to your properties with smart improvements
* Choose the best financing for your investments
* Protect your net worth with LLCs and other legal strategies

Whether you need money for your child's college tuition, a prosperous retirement, or a higher quality of life, Investing in Real Estate, Fifth Edition is the best guide available to help you start building real wealth right now.

Genres: Business, Finance, Nonfiction, Education, Money

336 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1988

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent book for those wanting to invest in real estate, more so than those exploring earlier stage questions, like 'rent versus buy', or first time home ownership. It gets quite technical early on covering various financial terms and legal mechanisms, as that is where a lot of the opportunity lies. Eldred is not bashful about his anti-government, pro-developer politics, but should one be surprised at all? His main points regarding different ways to create value in real estate investing are useful in learning to think more strategically, and to understand common mistakes and biases that newbies and amateurs tend to make.

[Jen]

I didn't get very far in this book, because its a few years old and therefore wildly out of touch with the current housing market. I'll look for the next revision, I suppose.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being completely ignorant as a real estate investor, I don't know if any of this book is legit or not, but it sure made sense to me.

[David McClendon, Sr · Rating 5 out of 5]

We review every book that comes into David’s hands unless, for some reason, we can’t give that book at least three stars. We checked Investing in Real Estate, 5th Edition by Paul McGreevy and Gary W. Eldred, which was published back in 2005, out from the Wharton County, Texas library. We discovered there is a newer version published in 2012 that is available. This review is based on the 2005 version.

Although this book was written in 2005, the information it contains is still timely and pertinent. These authors did not specifically predict the soon-to-be real estate bubble. They did give information that would have prevented a savvy investor from getting caught in that bubble.

One recurring piece of advice is to do your research and not to trust the advice of so-called professionals without verifying the information for yourself.

Investing in Real Estate, 5th Edition is very well-written and chock full of information that would be of great service to any would-be real estate investor.

We give this book all five stars. We think that anyone interested in the topic would probably do well to buy the more updated edition.


We borrowed a copy of this book from the Wharton County, Texas Library. We are under no obligation to write any review, positive or negative.

We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.

[Ayesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Includes a lot of great tips for people interested in investing, general real estate knowledge, and examples. I'd love if it had more real life examples especially of people that failed and learned from mistakes. If it had more real estate investing math scenarios, that would be helpful too.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny how I bought this book to learn more about buying rental properties, but I have to keep skewing all his examples since the author not only lives in southern California, but wrote this during the ascent of the housing bubble. 40 year mortgages, balloon payments, 10% down payments... It’s like bizarro world. Nothing I see around me here in upstate New York even compares. Still, the valuation methods and the ratios make sense. The bits on what to include in a lease and finding good tenants are great. I just have to replace all his numbers with ones that are more realistic.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great jump start in learning about real estate. It breaks things down and makes it easy to understand. It will pump you up about the possibilities Real Estate has to offer.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent read on the principles and mechanics of investing. In terms of demonstrating fundamentals, this book is great.

[Bobbi]

great info!

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book regarding the fundamentals of real estate investing. None of the usual get rich quick hogwashery.

[Donald W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent source of information for those interested in beginning a career in Real Estate investing. Covers diverse topics from appraisal, contract negotiation, performance evaluation and more.

[Brian Hara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent for basic concepts.

[Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, this author takes a different approach from the other gurus...that of an entrepreneur.