Customer Reviews

The New No-Nonsense Landlord, Revised and Expanded

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

 

 

This book was written in 1994 and may be viewed by some as being dated. The author is a small real estate investor and tells of projects that he personally has been involved in as well as the project of other people he knows. The stories are real and there are before and after photos in the book, which is quite uncommon for a book of this type. There is a chapter on "Success Stories" that I particularily enjoyed. There's a chapter of the "Fixer-Upper" which was also good. Many of the other chapters about tenants and management were covered in other books with mcuh more depth. "Landlording" by Leigh Robinson is an excellent book on the tenant and management side of the business and is much more comprehensive than this book. This is a good book, but not a great book. I appreciate the author's experience in rental properties and I liked to see the photos which help tell the story and make the examples very real. This book does not have all the answers and if you expect that you will be disappointed.

I felt the Author spent too many pages on telling stories of things he had heard that others had done in this business. Very few things seem to be from the personal experience of the author. I came to the conclusion by the time I had gotten bored with the book that the author wrote it to "build wealth with royalties" instead of rental properties. It has a few good ideas and points but seriously lacked any connection with the next topic or idea.

Not much substance here. It's a 75,000 foot book. After reading it, there is no way you could even contemplate running a business with the tools it gives you.

Contrast this to the Nolo Press book on being a land lord. That's a 10,000 foot book. The Nolo book talks about real issues (ex. asbestos, lead paint, etc...) It gives you a CD ROM with all the government mandated forms. What's more, it gives them to you in Spanish, too. The Nolo book goes into detail about you, your rights and responsibilities... more like liabilities... of having undesirable tenents (ie. drug dealers). I haven't found another book out there that drills down into issues that can get you sued if you don't follow them. This book doesn't touch any of that. It's like it doesn't exist.

The Milin book makes this one look good. The Milin's is definitely dated. Suprised they just don't mention bearer treasury bonds as a method of financing... These folks are once removed slum lords. They have an interesting theory: 3 bedroom, 2 bath houses. As far as liquidity, that's as good as you can get. But their methods of management would land you in real hot water. For example, Sam the tenent has agreed to cut the grass as part of the rental agreement that the Milin's insist on. Sam is blue collar and has a small amount of insurance. Well, Sam leaves the grass clippings around. Billy slips on them while he's walking by. Per the law as pointed out in Nolo, the landlord will probably be sued. Why? Cause Sam among other things is the poor guy. And the rest of that book is filled with such non-sense. Some of the more pretentious statements are how they suggest you can represent yourself, "The English Aristocrat" or the guy who's just too cheap/dumb to even get a DBA much less a Sub Class S corporation. It's rather easy to unfold that story: tenent gets lawyer. Lawyer shows that landlord is a sham. Landlord loses lawsuit. Landlord has no corporation to shield assets. Landlord loses rental house. Rather [bad]to even suggest such stupidity.

None of these books cover insurance very well in realistic terms, either. Only Nolo does.

What is a gaping hole in most books are the realistic finance angles. Nothing down? Yeah right. Give me a break. What's your time worth to you? For how much work you will do to find this deal (along with 200 other people fighting for it) you could have saved yourself time and money by just doing conventional financing. The McGraw Hill book on Real Estate Investment Finance is probably the best I've seen. Banker's are not going to waste their time. Life is just a bit more complicated than a one chapter overview.

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK FOR THE DO-IT-YOURSELFER. IT WAS WRITTEN BY SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN IN THE BUSINESS FOR MANY,MANY YEARS. HE HAS STRONG RECOMENDATIONS ON YOU TAKING CHARGE. HE BELEAVES IN RENTING GOOD CLEAN UNITS AND GIVING GOOD SERVICE. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT MANY OVERLOOK. TALKS ALOT ABOUT DEALING WITH TENANTS. HE TELLS OF A LOT OF LITTLE TIDBITS IN MANAGEING HIS PROPERTY. EXPLAINS IN LENGTH CONTRACT FOR DEEDS. HE TAKES YOU THRU THE BEGINING OF INVESTING TO CASHING OUT. COMPARES RENTALS TO 401K's AND MANAGEING YOUR MONEY. HE IS THE FIRST AUTHOR TO TALK ABOUT YOUR WELL BEING AS A LANDLORD AND GIVES ALOT OF ADVICE TO HELP COPE IN THE BAD TIMES AND TELLS OF KEEPING A GOOD MENTAL ATTITUDE. EVEN THOUGH IT WAS WRITTEN IN THE EARLY 90's THIS BY FAR IS ONE OF THE BETTER REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT BOOKS THAT I HAVE READ.

This is a starter book for first-time investors. (...) I think the book deserves a
read through, especially for first time investors who are hesistant to take a risk on real estate. He addresses the mindset behind investing, and why everyone should be involved, not just "geniuses and rich people".He spends a fair amount of time encouraging and explaining real estate investing to would be investors. So give at a try. This might be a good book to pick up used, along with a few others.

This book is for those individuals who are flirting with the idea of buying rentals. The first 100 pages were purely motivational: Stories of people who have done well with rentals and the repetetive "I've done it, and you can do it too!" mantra that you get in cheap infomercials. The rest of the book provides little useful information about buying and managing rental units. I read the entire book in an afternoon. It amazed me how little information could be packed into 306 pages (though large print and many pictures of properties did help).
Don't regard this review as mean spirited: there are many very good books on investing in residential real estate, but this one is not worth the money.

Of the many how-to real estate investment books out there, Jorgensen comes accross with great detail for anyone starting out in the real estate field! His explanations are thoughtful and there are a lot of examples and details! Out of the many, many, many books I've read and in my experience, this book is very honest. The author spends time talking about the pitfalls of real estate and he presents a very realistic view of this type of investing. It's an excellent place to start for beginners and it makes a good refresher for vetrens. It's the very first book I recommend to anyone interested in real estate investment.

This book is very helpful for people who are thinking about investing. Jorgensen has some very good principles in this book that deserve more thought and research. I recommend this book to everyone I know that is thinking about rental property. Worse case this is a great starting point. ***MAKE SURE YOU READ THE NEWEST EDITION*** (There are at least 3 different editions)

Some of the info was out of step with my area of the country and I wish there was a little more detail in some areas. But on the whole solid and down to earth.

This book was easy and to the point. I found the information very helpful