How to Get Started in Real Estate Investing [Kindle Edition]

He warns novice investors about potential pitfalls. For
example, in a foreclosure "you might...think you're bidding
on a first mortgage only to find out that it's a second or
third." In another example, an investor bought an apartment
building, and had to refund security deposits that were paid
to the previous owner because he failed to address the
deposits in his purchase offer.

The book is an easy read, although there are some annoying,
obvious errors. Such as p.141 (2x$1000=$1000???) and p.153
where it states that "contractors can... handle
construction for far less than an investor... Thus a
contractor's margins are lower." Clearly he means the
contractor's margins are higher. I wonder if anyone at
McGraw-Hill actually read this book before it went to press.

The author frequently plugs his other books for more
details on specific aspects. Personally, I found that
to be cheesey, as if I just paid for a book that's really
a marketing tease.

Anyway, I bought this book looking for a primer on the
topic. Overall, I think it served that purpose well.

Although the book is easy reading, I did not find any new or helpful information for investing in markets such as the one I live in (San Diego, CA) where single- and multi-family homes sell in a day or 2 and routinely sell for more than list price AND are over inflated value-wise. I bought this book as the result of a positive review in the local paper, hence my disappointment. Irwin has to obviously equalize the content in order to appeal to a wide audience across very diverse real estate markets.

Finding foreclosures and distressed sellers can be a full time job in and of itself. The book seems to trivialize the effort required to really make this type of investment pay.

BIG disadvantage of using the Internet that is NOT mentioned is that there are a LOT of sites out there to weed through. A list of better/recommended sites would be helpful to the reader. I believe there were 3 in total listed. Additionally, MANY , if not MOST of the FSBO web sites I visited have/had stale listings and this caveat re: the Internet is not noted.

It seems to me that the ability to finance a home and obtain a mortgage is also trivialized. Again, depending on the market, even a 10% down payment can represent a significant chunk of change. And if your credit is marginal, I believe a borrower would be hard pressed to get a mortgage with little or nothing down - mention isn't made of the caveats to E-Z financing, such as good credit and income requirements.