Customer Reviews

How to Make Million$ in Real Estate in Three Years Starting with No Cash, Third Edition

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

Mostly the author is trying to sell you his other junk. When he does actually talk about real estate, its just pushing worhtless "no money down" techiniques. He thinks you should just get out there and start buying. No mention of numbers and if these purchases will be able to pay for themselves or make you any money. What a joke.

I suppose there is some good information in this book, if you can get past Tyler Hicks shallow attempts to call you a "good friend" and his shameless self promotion. Nearly every other page of this book instructs the reader to go buy this other book or subscribe to his newsletter in order to get the fullest amount of information. Sorry Tyler, my "good friend," this reader sees right through your attempts! Not only do I regret spending a dime on this book, I guarantee you I will not buy any more of your propaganda.

Don't be ripped-off! HONESTLY, the only reason this book rated 1 1/2 stars is because there is no zero-star option. Almost every page is a shameless plug for the author's newsletter and other financial wares. In between these nauseating self promotions is advice such as "when dealing with a commercial lender, try to negotiate a lower interest rate." DUUUHHHH!!! I never would have thought of that! If you need such advice, I will gladly sell you my slightly used book . . . and I have a bridge in Brooklyn. Seriously, don't waste your money!

1 Star is really misleading, it implies some value, we need a 0 star option. I have read several real estate books, and they all have something to teach you. Except this one. Amazon (and Borders, where I bought it) should face a class action lawsuit for selling this piece of trash masquerading as a book. Does anyone read it before deciding to sell it? I am sure they know the problem by now. But what are they going to do, stop selling a good money maker? That title must sell lots of copies. It is designed to sucker you in and get your cash.

The "author" Tyler Hicks is the type of guy who would have been a snake oil saleman in the old days. A charlatan who cons people out of their hard earned money by pretending to have something of value to them. Just the way he keeps trying to get you to trust him by calling you "good friend," is creepy. It is written for morons who will think "Wow! Tyler must really like me! He would never mislead me!" He even makes the offer: If you subscribe to my newletter for 2 years, I will happily lend you money to finance your deals, or give you a list of lenders. Hmm. I wonder which one he will choose to do.

I challenge any of the "reviewers" who liked it to mention anything useful from the book. Quote Tyler Hicks or just put it in your own words, oh and don't forget to mention what page it can be found on. No one will be able to do this. There is nothing useful in this "book." The negative reviewers are "jealous" or "lazy"? Hah! I admit one thing: you guys are good at spinning it to make it look like the honest reviewers are the ones who are full of crap. Rather than attack them or call them names, why not mention something useful you learned in the book and what page it can be found on? Your reviews are as empty as the book. Who are you, the publisher? the author? his brother? And please stop opening new Amazon accounts and voting over and over again for the favorable reviews to bump them to the top. Pathetic.

The only positive thing about the book is how it made me laugh at some of the ridiculous "advice." For example: Chapter 7 - Make Residential Properties Your Wealth Source, pages 124 -126 gives us such gems as this... You find a 10-year-old 50-family building for sale for $750,000. The owner clearly has at least 20% equity, and is netting at least $62,000 a year from it. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for you, he dies. His estate lawyer puts it up for sale for $150,000 down. You make the more than generous offer of nothing down. He is forced to accept, almost begging you not to force him to come down even more. In other words: You find a large, young apartment building in great condition, which generates good income, being dumped for a ridiculously low price. Mysteriously, no one else wants to buy it. Apparenty you are the only person other than Tyler who ever thought of the crazy idea of buying real estate. So you rake the seller over the coals until he agrees to finance 20% of it himself just to unload the money making machine that no one but you is willing to take off his hands. Yep, sounds realistic. Now I am ready to become a millionaire in 3 years.

In other places he lays out the plan for you to follow, which basically consists of: (I kid you not) Buy property cheap for no money down, sell it high for money down, use the proceeds to buy more property, etc. then in 3 years when you are a millionaire, spend your time vacationing on the beach. But he never actually tells you how to do any of it. He literally spends more time telling you to take vacations than covering any specific techniques for buying low, selling high, getting no cash down terms, etc. You just keep hoping he will eventually get to the nitty gritty. It never happens.

You can learn more about real estate for almost any other book, on any subject. I recommend any other book on real estate over this one.

Note: My wife just checked, and indeed, Borders has stopped selling this title! Unfortunately, Tyler will probably just rehash it again in another title.

Don't waste your money, this is another useless infomercial. He is promoting his services in every single page, sometimes more than once with no useful information at all. I've seen this type of infomercials in the past but this is too much...

I tend to agree with the other reviewers, the self-promotion is at an embarassing level (although I haven't counted, I would bet that there is some form of promotion of his newsletter or other product on one out of every four pages). Mr. Hicks does hit on important concepts, such as leveraging and no-money down deals, and definitely stresses importance and usefulness, but never gets into the nitty-gritty details of doing it. I felt like the whole book was a "fleshed-out" table-of-contents, with the main items, but no meat to how to get it done.

There are plenty of good books out there, I would suggest getting one of them instead of this one.

This entire book reminds me of the Steve Martin routine from the 1970s which spooofed this entire genre: "Yes, YOU can be a MILLIONAIRE, and not pay taxes. First, get a million dollars. Then, don't pay taxes."

Hicks doesn't really go into much greater detail, and when he does he offers tips and techniques that you'd have to be dumber than a stump to actually try. For example, when suggesting possible ways to find money to go into No Money Down Deals, he actually suggests taking out an ad in a newspaper and convincing some schmuck to take out a home equity loan on his own house, and then give YOU the proceeds of that loan. While there may be some people out there dumb enough to actually pledge their home as collateral and then give the money to someone they met through the newspaper, there probably aren't very many. And those who ARE that naive and gullible probably already own this book.

Real estate is a great investment vehicle and offers many business opportunities. Find another book. If it tells you that you can be a millionaire in no time flat and without work or investing your own money and you actually believe that . . . please send me $10,000 and I promise to be your personal wealth coach. I guarantee at least one of us will get rich. Good friend.

Readers, If you are curious about real estate investing, then take my word for it, this book is NOT what you are looking for.
The author spends the whole time pretty much giving you a pep talk about just getting out and and making offers to people for a hundred percent plus in financing and while im not saying that you couldnt get that, I am saying that this book does not tell you anything that a little common sense wouldnt tell you. And common sense is free. Plus the whole book is like one big plug for the authors other businesses that hes trying to sell you. I felt like I paid money for an infomercial!!!! I dont know what book to recommend to you, dear reader, but this is NOT it.
Thanks for your time.

I must say the other reviewers shouldn't be so disappointed in the contents of the book. I am afraid most people in the world (and certainly in my country, America) are looking for the easiest way to become the next successful millionare. Nobody wants to work for it and everybody wants to get that way without taking any risks. But people with common sence know that to earn money, one must work for it. And it takes time to make money these days (as always), even in real estate. So, I believe people who write negative reviews about this book are the people who are foolish enough to buy into the hype of the book and then are let down by the fact that in order to follow Ty Hick's formulas they must get out there and conduct business in a professional manner, making smart and informed decisions about what income producting real estate to buy, find a way to borrow money for down payments and secure 100% financing, take risks with that borrowed money, maybe have to settle with old fixer-upers in the early stages when one has no money and no credit, etc. You see, this book does hype you up about being a millionare which I'm sure makes lazy people like 95% of all my fellow Americans drool all over themselves. But when they open up the book and read the contents of the pages they find that it actually takes some planning, work, doesn't happen overnight, can be hard to get funds when they have no credit and a poor financial statement, and has a possibility of failing or not bringing in what the book title suggests. So, now they feel prompted to come online and write nasty reviews about Ty Hick's books not having any useful information in them. Sorry reviewers, but you're just plain lazy! The book doesn't try to pretend to be a one-stop source for your riches, wealth, health, and prosperity. It is nothing more than an info book package, not an answer to all your problems in life. It points you in the right direction if you are an absolutely newbie to the field of real estate and that, I think, is plenty for the cost of a $15.00 book. He teaches you conventional and non-conventional ways of borrowing money, how to go about making down payments with what he calls OPM (other people's money), who to go to get loans and money and the pros and cons of going the way of some of those routs (like using money brokers). Sure, there are risks in borrowing money for real estate, but far less risks in real estate than in the stock market or many, many other investment options! If your not willing to take at least some kind of risk then work in a factory and never invest your money in anything besides a savings account. And furthermore, the idea of borrowing money for everything you do is dangerous to some extent but not if you are making a smart decision and researching your options and making sure you can make a profit on some property before going down to the bank and getting a loan on it. He talks plenty about what NOT to do, mistakes to avoid, etc. in this book on this subject.
And of course many people who buy this book have little or no money and are just starting out with little or no credit whatsoever. So, naturally you cannot go borrow a $250.000 down payment for a home when your bank account has $6.02 in it. He explains this very clearly and doesn't mislead you to believe that you can do otherwise. He states very clearly that if you are looking for overnight riches that this isn't for you. If you really are starting out with no cash and nothing to your name, then it will take time to build up the financial statement required for those huge loans for that big income producing real estate. He gives you advice on what small income-producing properties to persue that have a much higher likelyhood of gettting you approved on a loan and a no down payment transaction on a home. This will help you slowly build up profitability over the course of a few years. Notice I said slowly, which is exactly what turns off most lazy readers of this book who want to get rich over night without having to work or wait for it.

I will agree with the other readers though that this book does have way too mucch hype at times and he advertises his other services such as his $24.00 per year newsletter and other books he has written which in essence say the same thing as this one does. One of his other books though, "How to Make BIG MONEY in REAL ESTATE", does talk about bank foreclosures which I think is valuable information for those who are just starting out and need some really low priced real estate to go after and invest in. Anyway, this book does seem like an infomercial and in many ways it is one in print. I don't like having to deal with the author advertising his services which is really nothing more than information that should have been included in the book instead of an extra charge newsletter. I do like the fact that in one of the chapters he gives you a list of places where you can obtain loans, borrow money, private investors, etc. He also sells (of course) extra information on just about every resources you would need. But again, this all should have been included in the book. I give the book 3 stars for the ideas it presents and the overall good worth that I think it will have to many complete real estate newbies who need good ideas, need to learn some of the terminology and mind set of the business, and need to know where to go to look for money they can borrow. The book though is very lacking and could have been a lot better if the author would have put his newsletter contents into this book instead of insisting on you the reader purchasing the newsletter seperate.

I would say this book will have far more worth to rookies in the field with no experience than it will to those who've been in RE for a while now. But caution to all newbies, this isn't a complete guide and you should really consider what your doing before you go into major debt right off the bat after reading this book. Start small, very small and gain experience from each and every real estate deal you get into. Zero cash down deals are hard to come by for a beginner but don't give up if you've been rejected half a dozen times or more...keep trying. But think small at first and grow over the course of time and you'll be fine.

I an 32 years old and I read this book 2 months ago... I bought my first no-money-down apartment building 6 weeks after starting the book.

He didn't re-invent the wheel. He has a good way of presenting information and methods for becoming a real estate entrepreneur. I did not subscribe to his other products as I felt that I did not need to. It did not aggravate me that he was self-promoting his services. All of the other reviews make me laugh... they are all frustrated by the author... He is a rich entrepreneur and of course he will promote his other services. That's what makes him succesfull and that's what makes some of the reviewers jealous.

All I have to say is: this is a tool for those who want to take control of their financial lives. I didn't stop myself at just this book... I also read "Multiple streams of income". I really did my homework and I wasn't expecting the authors of those books to answer EVERY question.... but did they ever wake me up!!!!!!!!

Go a head reach your full potential!... and don't be scared.

Cheers...