Customer Reviews

Inside Story: Official Real Estate Manual

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wonderful book for starters like myself at the real estate profession. True guidness. I read the book in two days, and inmediately I started to use the tips Barbara gives to make an appointment with a FSBO, and it worked every word she said. I encourage to buy this book, is an investment you will never regret!

Even if you are just starting out at real estate, as I am, you could get away with not reading this book. Barbara Nash-Price does a very basic job explaining some techniques and ideas for selling real estate, finding buyers, and getting listings. She spends FAR too much time, however, using long, useless lists that include: what to give your 'personal assistant' to do (that's almost two pages - and WHO can afford a personal assistant??), how to organize your daily planner (this takes up nearly a chapter), and even a list of sample "ads", which is nice, but do we really need pages and pages and pages and pages of that?

The book is written probably at a 6th grade reading level, and is punctuated with lots of double spaced text, lots of quotation marks (which she uses LIBERALLY), lots of CAPITAL LETTERS, and plenty of red text. You can read this book in one day if you sit still for a couple of hours. This book also includes an utterly useless guide to purchasing a computer. It is evident that Ms. Nash-Price has no computer knowledge (to be fair, she does state this in the book) since she boldly tells us that a 286 with a 20-40 MG hard drive should be sufficient. If you can find a 286 for SALE these days, I would be shocked. Despite the age of this text, I would think that anyone using a computer on a daily basis would be able to suggest something more sensible. She also gives completely useless names of vendors and software programs to use. Again, she is too specific. Instead of suggesting purchasing a high power word processor, she boldly suggests Microsoft Word 5.5. Is that even for SALE now? Because of this, her text dates dramatically. Perhaps she is writing to an older, less computer literate crowd, but there's no excuse for these kind of mistakes! If Ms. Nash-Price had the lack of knowledge she claims in her book, maybe she should have skipped that chapter alltogether, or at best, passed it along to someone who could write meaningfully on the subject.

This book, although it was written in 96-97, mentions NOTHING about the internet and its valuable uses. The book does go into some detail about self promotion, but it doesn't really go far enough, leaving the reader asking more questions.

Finally, it is evident that the author believes full well in HER techniques, and HER TECHNIQUES ONLY.....if you don't use RED TABS for listings and WHITE TABS for buyers, you can't "WORK EFFECTIVELY"! If you don't like color-coding your life, forget it! These are nice suggestions, but it would be nice if she suggested things that are adaptable to different work styles.

This is not a total waste of reading, but be prepared for VERY trite text and only basic ideas. Still, some are worthwhile and a few, even interesting. Try to get the book used, like I did, however....I wouldn't pay the price for new.

I thought this book was on the "kindergarden" side but aside from that, there was good information through-out the book. Some of the list that Nash suggests goes on for miles - read through them and pick out the ones that will benefit you. I think this book is great for the layperson or the beginner who has no direction or training. Not all brokers have time to train a newbie, so this book will surely be a great help.

Barbara Nash puts the information out there so it is up to the sales associate to gather that info and use it to make their career efforts easier.

If you want to look into this book before buying it, check it out at your local library and then decide for yourself. That is what I did and when I read through it, I bought it for my own benefit in the future.

Great stuff!

I read this book the night I got it and found it very well laid out and easy to follow. I am just about to start a career in real estate and I would recomend this book to anyone that may be in the process of beginning their career as well.