Customer Reviews

Goldmining in foreclosure properties

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

No one book is perfect. Read as much as you can before putting your money at risk, but do NOT exclude this book. It is the best of at least 10 that I've read recently.

This is an author who's really done it, over and over. He gives details of his own examples in buying and selling, carrying paper, renting and rehabing. He's creative and honest. This is a hands-on, non-theoretical approach.

There's absolutely no hype and he spends zero time trying to convince you how great he is (or how much you need to buy this or that seminar/tape/etc.) This book is straight forward, good information about finding and buying distressed properties, then rehabing or renting or selling or creative deal-making with them for profit.

Some of the information seems slightly dated and many of his examples were deals probably not so recent. The book has some typos and reversed photos (of the condo where the house discussion is and vica-versa). Nonetheless, I never felt a lack of relevance in the material. Its not perfect, but its very good.

While the writer has some good ideas on putting together a process on buying foreclosures, he does not answer many of the crucial questions someone new to the field has. 1) How clean is the title when delivered by a foreclosing bank? 2) How to conduct a reliable appraisal. (he spends 1-2 pages on the in the whole book)

Good ideas but there have got to be better books that answer the important questions.

What you WON'T find in Goldmining in Foreclosure Properties is any untrue hype or other type of "get rich" schemes. You won't learn how to buy properties for $1.00, nor will you find any clever plans for using OPM or anything else like that.

What you WILL get is a book that:

1) Is brutally honest with respect to the fact that it takes money to make money: "...I'd get one certified check for $90,000.00 and four $10,000.00 checks..."

2) Has embarassingly dated information: "...by the middle of the 1990's, we may have an avalanche of foreclosure and defaults..."

3) Is filled with numerous examples of the form "I bought the house, took out a 2nd mortgage, rented it to my grandmother, painted the gutters, gave a buy option to my brother-in-law, installed indoor plumbing, yada, yada, then made $1000.00 net profit a year later". Yawn.

4) Paints the investor as some sort of white knight who saves defaulters and banks. Then, in almost the same breath, says things like "immeditaely evict the tenant".

5) Does not give you any specific information. Want to know how to navigate a deed room? No dice.

The quote on the front of the book, in a very clever way, totally sums up the book: "An excellent overview of the benefits of buying foreclosures". Read that close, especially the "overview" and "benefits". What it DOESN'T say is "An excellent information source for buying foreclosures".

Don't waste your money on the book.

George Achenbach, has written other real estate books under the names Val Cabot and Lee Crown. He has been a builder of 7,000 houses and a buyer of foreclosed properties. He tells of his sucesses as well as his unsucessful ventures into the foreclosure world. His book has pictures of and descriptions of the various foreclosure cases with which he has been involved. His book is written from the prespective of somebody who actually worked foreclosures for many years. This is not the easiest area of real estate investment to work, but through deligence and perserverance the rewards can be extremely lucrative. There are other books on foreclosure, but I can't think of any that are as good. Over 50,000 copies of this book have been sold and with good reason. There are a lot of PRETENDERS in the foreclosure field with books and course that have high promises and little substance. George Auchenbach is the REAL Deal. He's done foreclosure investing for many years and has written an easy to read layman book on foreclosure.
My only criticism is that some aspects are dated. The cases in the book stretch back over the 30+ year career of the author and therefore some of the dollar amounts and the years of the transactions are old. However the principles and lessons learned from the author's experiences are timeless. This is best book on foreclosure that I've read, but I'm still looking for something better, that perfect book. If I could I would have rated it 4.5 stars. I recommend this book to anyone interested in buying foreclosure real estate.

CERTAIN SECTIONS COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN MORE CLEARLY. THE SERIES OF EVENTS LEADING TO A FORECLOSURE WAS DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW.

AFTER READING THE BOOK, I STILL DIDN'T GET A CLEAR IDEA HOW CLEAN THE TITLE WILL BE AT EACH STAGES OF THE FORECLOSURE PROCESS.

THE BOOK MENTIONED THAT CERTAIN STATES USE DEEDS WHILE OTHERS USE MORTGAGES. BUT IT DIDN'T TELL YOU WHAT YOUR STATE FALLS INTO THUS WHICH PROCEDURE TO FOLLOW NEXT.

IF YOU FOLLOW HIS METHODS FOR SEARCHING OUT THE PROPERTIES, YOU'LL PROBABLY HAVE TO DO THIS ON A FULL TIME BASES. AT CERTAIN STEPS, I'LL RATHER PAY FOR CERTAIN SERVICES TO SIMPLIFY THINGS.

THE BOOK DOES HAVE MANY USEFUL TECHNIQUES ESPECIALLY ON PERSON TO PERSON CONTACT AND NEGOTIATION SKILLS.

No one book can teach you everything you need to know about buying foreclosures and real estate investment, but this book covers the basics in a straight forward manner. I read the third edition which is somewhat dated, but the examples are usefull is showing how many ways there are to structure a deal. As someone who actively buys foreclosed properties, I recommend this book.

Frankly put, the information and examples contained in this book were probably relevant in 1999 when the book was published, but after 2000 many of the examples and principles became irrelevant in our changing economic world. Real estate became the sexy investment of choice, new types of mortgage products became available and owners and renters alike became much more sophisticated. The author talks about buying houses for $36,000!!! Perhaps in the early 1980's, but not anymore--especially not in California which is where most of his real estate dealmaking took place.

Save your money and purchase another real estate book on pre-foreclosure prospecting, or the financials of property ownership. It will be money well spent.

Of the several foreclosure manuals I've read, this is definitely the best. The author gives several examples of his own purchases making it more believable. This one is not quite as hyped-up as the usual get-rich-easy real-estate book. The 3 phases of foreclosure, along with lots of good technical how-to details are covered. I highly recommend it!

This book help me get staarted in Real Estate. I bought my first house as a Pre Foreclosure and made a $ 20,000.00 dollar profit. A great place to start.

This author seems to have a lot of experience buying real estate. The ideas in the book are old but he makes a lot of good points. It is not possible to do everything just as he says but he will get you to learn to think. There are a lot of things to look out for and he teaches you to learn to look. Of course, you can not use all of his ideas. He bought one house with a negative outlay of 250+ a month and made 30000 because the house went up in value. That would be hard to do that deal today. This is guy is so good that he would still do very well today. I have 20-30 books on real estate but I do like this book a lot. There are a lot of reviewers pointing out all of the flaws in this book. I prefer to look at the good things and just ignore the weakness. This is a 5 star book to me.