Rating:  Summary: Best Book in the Series Review: This is the absolute best book in the series. After reading Rich Dad Poor Dad and playing cash flow a half dozen times I sold my 98 Ford Mustang cobra for 18000 and bought my first property. Then four more. I now have a passive income that exceeds my living expenses. Out of the Rat race. This book answered many of my current questions. Like if I should pay down the mortgages, should I sell at some point, and how and where do I find money for more.
Rating:  Summary: A book about why and not how Review: This book is really very well written, I have read several real estate books, and this one is one of the easier reads. Unfortunately, I read the book hoping to get more tips and tactics, but instead I got a lot of why I should be buying real estate, which I already know and is why I bought the book. I've read several of the Rich Dad series books, and this one is very weak in terms of the technical information, as opposed to the other books, which I have generally found to be pretty good.
Rating:  Summary: Not so great as I thought it would be Review: I have been very involved in real estate for over the last year. I have read several books about the subject, go to a real estate investment club once a month, and bought a duplex two months ago. Learning how to invest WISELY in real estate takes time and is a constant learning process. There are many specifics you need to know about investing in real estate, and I do not think this book covers them. You definately cannot jump in head first by just reading this book. I do not think he wrote this book with the mindset of educating beginners, I feel like he wrote this book for himself to understand, not the general public. There are a few good tips in this book, but there are other books that will inform you much better about this subject matter and take you step by step through the investment process. Borrow this book, but don't buy it, it isn't worth the money.
Rating:  Summary: Not for the Faint at Heart Review: Do you like buying properties? Fixing them up? Working with people? Can you go against everything that is "common sense" about property ownership? Then this book is for you and you will be extremely successful. One week after buying this book I refinanced my duplex so as to buy 2 additional properties which would bring in the equivalent of my current working salary. To be clearer, in one week I have doubled my salary but the second half of it is mostly tax-free. If you find nothing compelling in what I have just described then buy another book (perhaps something on the stock market?), but if you want to create a similar situation for yourself, then this book is invaluable. Dolf doesn't take you by the hand through this process, but he shows you how you must change your thinking so that you research and invest more successfully. For the nuts and bolts, there are many other books. For the formula that turns it all into gold, Dolf is your alchemist.
Rating:  Summary: Good beginner's book Review: This was a great book for someone needing that little extra push to get into real estate. If you are a veteran investor or even someone who has been in real estate for a little while, you probably won't get anything from this book. I personally got a lot from this book in different areas. Once you get through much of the soft information, you will get to the some good information. I must admit, it doesn't even come close to Rich Dad Poor Dad, but it's an easy read. Again, if you are a beginner, read this.
Rating:  Summary: A nice read, but short on information Review: I found this book to be very easy to read, and it should be. There is little, to no, hard information about securing a mortgage or evaluating the value of a property. The author, Dr. Dolf de Roos, spends most of the book formulating an arguement for Real Estate investing over the Stock Market as well as relaying some very nice anecdotes about property he's bought. I put down this book with the same information I picked it up with : buy undervalued property, look at a whole bunch of properties, evaluate the potential return on the property, tax laws can be your friend, and use as little as your own money as possible. There are some elementary formulas for calculating such things as your annual % return, but these are formulas you should be able to develop if you passed 5th grade. I like the Rich Dad series of books and in general they can be very motivating. This was the fourth book in the series that I have read and I agree that it is by far the weakest. That said, the Rich Dad books should not be read by themselves. Thier anecdotal information should be supplemented with other books containing more formal knowledge, especially this one.
Rating:  Summary: Light weekend reading for someone interested in real estate Review: Other reviews here have summed up this book well in the fact that it is an incredibly vague motivational type of book more than it teaches you how to invest in real estate at all. It seems that all "Rich Dad" books are vague and such, but at least Rich Dad/Poor Dad gave a different philosophy of how to think about money and such. This book gives nothing more than a sales pitch about how wonderful real estate is and then tries to sell you his other products. I personally have had very bad luck with these types of authors that try to sell the grass that's always greener on the other side. You buy their other books and it just routes you to a home study course which routes you to the seminars which routes you to the personal coaching lectures, etc.
Rating:  Summary: Changing from stocks to real estate Review: I enjoyed this book and learned much more than I expected. Dr. Deroos is enthusiastic. I have been very much a stock investor and successful. Except for the taxes. The best part of this book is the chapter that compared the long term ramifications of stock vs. real estate investing. The tax advantages of real estate and the leverage have made me start looking around Los Angeles for my first little apartment building. Buy it and read several times. Another great is the audiocassette version of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The 5 cassette pack is unabridged and should be listened to completely once a once until you have made it. Bill Allen, Southern California.
Rating:  Summary: GREAT BOOK Review: well basically this book i found was pretty interesting and loads of reviews that i have read has actually been to the "bad shape" of the book.But i strongly believe that to kow the how-to's,one has to understand the why-to's.Infact it is from the why-to's that loads of information can be achieved.It is not the basic why-to's that i am toking abt,for eg,property values tend to be very stable and stuff like that.These are basic why-to's.The more complex ones are the ones we should learn from for eg,how the real property price can be found out which i am sure most novices wouldn't know how to.So stop grumbling abt the "bad work" on the book and get real.
Rating:  Summary: Very Disappointing Review: Although I liked the first "Rich Dad" book very much, this book was terribly disappointing. Yes, it does make a simplistic case for real estate over stocks, but fails miserably in actually explaining the nuts and bolts of real estate investing. As an Australian, the author seems to know little about the U.S. except that California is growing faster than North Dakota and thus will make a better investment. Yet, he fails to note that most California rentals fail to yield a positive cash flow. And in the coming recession, cash flow is king. This book strikes me as an opportunistic quickie to take advantage of stock market turmoil and the "Rich Dad" brand identitity. For much more depth and "how to" information, I think Investing In Real Estate (Mclean and Eldred) provides a far superior book. It covers every thing mentioned in the de Roos book, plus many topics that aren't discussed at all. Come on Rich Dad, you can do much better than this!
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