Customer Reviews

Building Wealth: From Rags to Riches Through Real Estate

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Sure, Russ Whitney may well be an expensive fraud to meet in person - as a number of emails I have read suggest, but you cannot allow this to detract from the impact that believing in this book may have on your life.

All Russ provides in this book is the starting framework, the ideas, and most importantly the real life examples and experiences for your reference. All of the ideas in his book can be found in any number of other texts and that is just the beauty of it all!! - Whitney is trying (successfully) to open the readers mind up to the fact that you don't require new secrets to build wealth. All you need is a burning desire, a framework, and most of all FAITH in your ability to get off your butt and take action to succeed!!

I am from New Zealand and my wife and I have gone from being hugely in debt to owning 3 units in 15 months, with more on the way. Hardly any of Whitney's techniques work in our market, however, he, and all of the books that I have read since, extoll the power of flexibility and thats what we have done - with what I think has been great success.

Read this book have faith and TAKE ACTION! PS Russ - clean up your act on the seminar scams!!

Russ Whitney's book was just the information I needed to begin my ascension from bankruptcy to financial independence. I saw an ad in the newspaper for an investment seminar he was sponsoring. While there was no way I could afford to attend it, the book was the perfect solution. I bought it. I was completely riveted, motivated and inspired. I couldn't help but take action on the concepts he detailed. Within one month of reading the book, I bought my first investment property. Within 10 months I had nine more. I, of course, had no money and bad credit at the time and was able to overcome it all with the information he provided. His style is relaxed and easy to read. He takes a complicated financial subject and makes it possible for the layman to assimilate and put into practice. He made me feel that if he could achieve wealth rising from a $5 an hour job as a hog slaughterer that anyone could. I believed him and it sure paid off. I'm now working on a success story of my own! I highly recommend this book as a must for any would be investor. Even now as an accomplished and experienced investor, rereading the book still provides me with new insights and I now see different levels of techniques to try. If you are not inspired and educated by this book, you may be completely without passion! Get the book, you'll be glad you did!

Russ Whitney's Book on Building Wealth paved the way for people like me to go from nothing, actually less than nothing, to now being a full-time real estate investor. The night I picked up Russ' book, I stayed up until 2am reading it, because I couldn't put it down. Russ' story is truly an inspiration to those who will LISTEN, and are ready to take action and control with their life(not whine). I did attend his training, my friend and I took every course that Russ offered. We are now both full time real estate investors, as are so many others who have taken the same path. I would like to Publicly thank Russ for Going the EXTRA MILE to offer, additional training for other's like me who are ready to make a change in their life. IT WORKED! THANK YOU Russ Whitney

First off, I don't think one basic book is going to prepare you for a serious real estate deal. So far, I've read about fifteen, listend to over two dozen tapes and spoken with a few people who are seriously doing it. Also, one of my friends swears by Russ Whitney and did his seminar and had a good experience with it.

But, if you're going to start with a basic book to about real estate investing, this is a great one. I don't believe in some authors who want to be negative and tell you about all the bad things or tell you that you can't do it.

According to a book I read about discount mortgages, something like 7 out of 10 people in the late 80s were millionaires from real estate. Granted, that may be lower with all the tech companies that turned some people into millionaires but I bet it's something like 6 out of 10 or 5 out of 10 still putting r/e into a majority.

Conversely, the David study on day traders said something like 1 out of 64 traders make a profit.

In other words, r/e is set up to help you win more than the stock market. The govt helps you by giving you tax breaks; banks are willing to loan you a good chunk of your money; as long as you have positive cashflow and r/e smarts, it can be profitable.

A good book to start out with before this is Robert Kiyosaki's RICH DAD, POOR DAD. If you like that, continue with the rest. Then, come back to this book if you know r/e is your financial vehicle.

Strongly recommend otherwise.

I'm growing weary or reading reviews written by people who have clearly never read the book they are reviewing, and worse, commenting on subjects not pertinent. Although I am not a book reviewer, I did ACTUALLY READ Building Wealth 4 years ago and credit it with my becoming a successful real estate investor. When I started out, I had about 200 dollars in my savings account (no checking account)and poor to outright horrible credit. Although it took me more than 18 months to make a million dollars, I eventually did. It wasn't easy, but it definitely is possible. Success depends on the person and their perserverance. If your expecting to simply read the book, or sit through a seminar and have a million dollars fall in your lap without working for it then you deserve what you get. Building Wealth will give you the tools. You have to use them.

This is one of the two best books that I have ever read on Wealth Building. The other being How to Make Nothing But Money, a NY times best seller by Dave DelDotto.Anyone who follows the techniques in this book is GUARANTEED to get results. The only thing that this book does not provide is the SWEAT EQUITY--You have to roll up your sleeves and go to work. The deals won't come to you.I also recommend Rich Dad, Poor Dad as excellent reads.

his biggest advice - a rooming house. For one good luck finding a house that has proper zoning for this. Politicians and neighborhoods hate these things. Not to mention the nightmare of the transient types you will attract. Also it's pretty dated as it still recommends buying RTC properties. The RTC died out years ago after the aftermath of the 80's real estate and S&L crash.

This book either needs a re-write, a re-vamp, or a recall. So much of the information seems out of date.

For example, Whitney gives a pretty amusing example of how to get $5k of credit fairly quickly: Basically he advises you to open a savings account at a small bank with $1k. (If you don't have $1k, he advises you borrow it from someone). Then a week or so later he suggests you ask for a $1k loan (a signature loan) against your $1k in the bank and use that money to open another account at another bank and do the process over again. Use the money that you borrowed from the second bank to repay the first loan, and then do it again at a third bank.

This *could* work, but he never really adresses the fact that it's going to cost you $1k plus interest to do this (if you borrow a your first thousand, you're always going to have to pay back $2k and where are you going to get that money?)

Then he focuses on renting out rooming houses or buying dumps and fixing them up into something a little nicer. Basically, you'll be providing housing for transient types or welfare recipients, as he seems to only advise buying cheap, run-down properties. That's great if you have plenty of fire insurance for when the tenants' meth lab explodes and burns down your investment, but otherwise, it's not to attractive a proposition.

Another tactic discussed is to find a "motivated seller", which usually means someone under stress or financial hardship. Then you take advantage of them and pay them far less than their property is worth. You may be able to get a good deal shortchanging old ladies out of their house once their husband dies and and the kids move away, but personally I'd have a hard time sleeping at night.

Bottom line, you might get something out of this book, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's not really realistic and Whitney comes across as kind of a sleeze.

Unfortunately, the rating system does not allow for a below zero rating- which is where this book belongs.

Having completed a 25 year career in mortgage banking, I can tell you that bankers are not as stupid as Whitney would lead you to believe. The techniques that Whitney offers in dealing with bankers- simply will not work.

Similar to other snake oil salesmen, Whitney discusses the OPM (other people's money) or no downpayment techniques to purchasing real estate.

These are great techniques in real estate markets that are so depressed that bank financing is not available. This is not the case in most real estatet markets in America today- especially in light of the current economy.

A reader would be better off buying books explaing the windfalls being made on Ocean Front Properties in Arizona.

Russ Whitney, infomercial guru, real estate multimillionaire, has a good story, if it's true. He raised himself up off of the ground as a slaughterhouse worker, a high school dropout, to become a rich man having succeeded in real estate. This book shares some of his tricks of the trade.

The book is especially well written and easy to read. A number of the techniques Russ suggests for building credit, evaluating whether or not property is a good deal, and using leverage seem fairly clever. Not having done my first deal (yet), I do not qualify as an authority on whether or not his techniques work. Some of the financing devices he used, however, such as assuming existing mortgages, might be hard to duplicate in today's low interest rate environment. Other techniques such as arranging seller financing might also take a lot more work than he implies.

There are a number of phone numbers and other specific references in the book which are no longer in service. Other aspects of the Whitney empire, beyond this book, also raise a few red flags (hyper-aggressive sales pitches at his free seminars, threats of litigation on discussion boards which discuss his techniques - ...

Overall, a great beginner's book - I felt like I learned a lot, but take with a grain of salt.