The Complete Guide to Investing in REITS -- Real Estate Investment Trusts: How to Earn High Rates of Returns Safely [Paperback]

Mark Gordon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 3, 2008

Currently, there are nearly 200 publicly traded real estate investment trusts (more commonly referred to as REITs) in operation in the United Sates with a combined $500 billion in assets. An estimated two-thirds of REITS are traded on national stock exchanges. A REIT is a real estate company that offers its shares to the public. By doing so, a REIT stock becomes like any other stock that represents the holder s ownership in a business. However, REITs have two distinct features: REITs manage groups of income-producing properties and must distribute 90 percent of profits as dividends. The Complete Guide to Investing in REITs will teach you everything you need to know about REITs and how you can earn high rates of return. In this book, you will learn about publicly and privately held REITs, Net Asset Value (NAV), Adjusted Funds From Operations (AFFO), Cash Available for Distribution (CAD), the benefits associated with REITS, dividend reinvestment programs (DRiPs), capitalization rate, equitization, leverage, positive spread investing, securitization, and straight-lining. You will also learn about equity, mortgage, and hybrid REITs and the more specific types, including residential, office, industrial, and retail. The Complete Guide to Investing in REITs will walk you through finding the appropriate REIT for you. This book will also teach you how to manage your REIT, how to limit your personal risk, how to understand REIT performance, and how to analyze REITs. By reading this book, you will know and understand the pitfalls of investing in REITs, you will know how REITs behave as an investment class and how to best integrate them into your portfolio, and you will know what economic issues affect real estate and the effects these have on REITs. This book is not merely for the novice investor who wants to learn everything possible about real estate investment trusts; professional investors, financial planners, and investment advisors will also find valuable information in this book. Ultimately, The Complete Guide to Investing in REITs will help you stabilize and grow your portfolio and earn high rates of return by providing you with vital information and practical guidance.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Company (FL) (September 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1601382561
• ISBN-13: 978-1601382566
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #564,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This book's title is misleading, February 4, 2011

By 

Ronald in Hawaii (Kailua-Kona, Hawaii United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Complete Guide to Investing in REITS -- Real Estate Investment Trusts: How to Earn High Rates of Returns Safely (Paperback)

I bought this book the other day (in 2011) and just finished reading it. I purchased the book in part based on its title, and its positive reviews.

I am writing this review to give what I think is some needed "balance" to what I think is a misleading title and to give some balance to some overly favorable and superficial reviews.

The title of this book is The COMPLETE Guide to Investing in Reits: How to Earn High Rates of Return Safely. I think that is misleading for two reasons.

A more accurate title would be A Newspaper Reporter's General Guide to REITS, a basic and beginning primer. This would be a far more accurate description. This book is nowhere near being a "complete" guide to REIT investing. Rather it is a somewhat well-written and well-organized guide to learning about REITS in very general, basic and elementary terms. It is merely a guide for a relative novice to BEGIN learning about REITS if the reader is just starting their REIT investment research.

The book is by no means complete, or exhaustive, or highly sophisticated. It is merely a beginner's primer. If viewed in this far more modest regard it does an OK job.

Second, it is by no means a guide on "how to earn high rates of return safely." In fact, I don't believe that it even much tries to give the reader any stucture or theory on how "high returns might be accomplished safely."

So if this second aspect of the book's title is what you are after, then you are likely to be disappointed.

Please note that the book indicates that the book's author, Mark Gordon, was a newspaper reporter for seven years on some local newspapers before writing this book (his first). He currently is the managing editor of the Gulf Coast Business Review (which covers business affairs on the Gulf Coast of Florida). There is nothing wrong with any of that, but be aware that the author does not reveal any actual investment background or education that gives him any "leg up" in opining about REITS. In other words he was more or less just an intelligent layman giving some general coverage about this subject. And time and time again the source of his basic information on REITS mostly comes from the REIT industry trade association, which general is in the business of producing industry "puff pieces" for PR purposes.

There are times when a reader might be convinced that this book might have even been sponsored by this trade association.

And although the book has a copyright of 2008,it pretty much does not discuss the fact that REITS took a huge hit in share prices in the 2007-2008 meltdown (with some losing up to 75% of their share price).

Thus this is an OK book for a beginning investor, who just wanted to begin learning about REITS. But is is not complete and does not provide a guide for safely making money in REITS. That you will have to learn somewhere else.

So, as you can tell, I did learn from this book. But I receive far less than what the book promised in its title and far less than the Four and Five Star reviews seems to suggest I might receive.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to REITS, July 29, 2009

By 

Bobbi Clough "Bobbi" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Guide to Investing in REITS -- Real Estate Investment Trusts: How to Earn High Rates of Returns Safely (Paperback)

Despite a reader's possible lack of trust in the real estate market these days, I think that reading Mark Gordon's The Complete Guide to Investing in REITS: How to Earn High Rates of Return Safely is definitely worthwhile for the small investor who wants to own a share of commercial and large-scale residential real estate. Gordon has the knack for taking difficult real estate concepts and making them easy to understand--I learned a lot. According to the book, REIT's, which act like a combination of stocks and bonds, are surprisingly predictable and profitable. The author does a good job of explaining the ins and outs of REITS--key terms (including a terrific glossary), history, myths, volatile sectors, global and healthcare REITS, and calculating the value of a REIT. I also appreciated the several wonderful short case studies, which helped me better understand key concepts.

The book is recent to 2007/beginning of 2008; hence, one glaring drawback of REITS is that it doesn't cover the current mortgage crisis and how it has affected REITS, especially mortgage REITS. Still, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a good introduction to REIT investments.

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good guide- read it before investing in a REIT, August 3, 2009

By 

Joyce Boncal "Noteable networker" (New England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Complete Guide to Investing in REITS -- Real Estate Investment Trusts: How to Earn High Rates of Returns Safely (Kindle Edition)

This book is very thorough covering the various types of REITs, giving the pros and cons of each type, as well as different vehicles that can be used to invest in REITs as well as methods to analyze REITs. Several REIT's are reviewed. It's current in discussing the effects of the drop in the 2008 real estate market on the REIT industry which affected mortgage REITs more than other types of REITs. The author explains key terms and abbreviations used in the industry but failed to put some of those abbreviations in the glossary.