Customer Reviews

Trump University Real Estate 101: Building Wealth with Real Estate Investments

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is not one of those garbage "no money down" real estate books, this book gives you valid and useful tips to help you build wealth in real estate, not pie in the sky nonsense. After reading this book I went out and did a deal (flip)and it went reasonably well. I'll get better with experience but this book gives you the basics to get started. Avoid all the no money, no credit books and read this one.

I was very disappointed at the shallow nature of this volume. Several chapters in I realized that this was just another way for Trump to generate a few more royalty dollars. This whole volume can be summarized in a few general maxims: Chapters 1-3 Think like an entrepreneur... meaning take risks. Chapters 4-5 Do your OWN homework ... meaning don't rely on generally accepted rules. Chapters 6-10 Come up with the NEXT great idea ..... meaning think outside the box don't just follow the herd. The only reason I did not give this book a 1 star * is that the last four chapters DO contain some valuable information and charts, formulas and methods that DO go beyond just common sense or obvious advice like where's the market headed? (Chapter 6). In particular it was not until the final chapter (14) How to Value Properties did I actualy take my pen and paper out and start to take some notes. A far better read is Confesssions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur. Save your Time. Use your Common Sense and Spend your $22 bucks to buy another book.

This book is very useful...but only for those who want to develop an entrepreneurial attitude to real estate - learn how to add maximal value to real estate. This book is not for those who want find "six secrets" or "seven superadvices" how to quickly (without efforts) became a billionaire.

Eldred does it again, showing that he not only knows how to build assets and build cash flow, he also knows how to utilize the Trump name (and Mr. Trump writing a very good foreword). Let's face it, real estate is the best industry out there for growing your money. Why? According to the book, because population is increasing and they don't make land anymore... So increase demand and limited supply.

Suggested complementary titles:

Complete Guide to Real Estate Tax Liens and Foreclosure Deeds: Learn in 7 Days

I do love to read a lot of the books from Trump, and this one is similar to the others in terms of format. It's very vague at times, and the author tries to sell your more books in the script. I'm starting to realize any material offered by Trump is going to have at least 10 books referenced that are highly recommended for you to read once you complete the current one you are reading.

I was expecting to read about all the steps involved with purchasing, financing, marketing, upgrading and managing real estate in this book. I suppose I assumed this would be like a dummy's guide to real estate investing, but it was a little more for the novice investor--at least it was more advanced than the 101 title implies, especially in the final chapter. I was let down in some areas, but the last few chapters about managing and valuating property are phenomenal.

I scaled down the rating due to all the publicity of additional reading material but I did think the final chapter on valuing properties was incredible so I gave it 3 stars. Had it been a little more in depth about financing real estate and excluded all the promoting of other books, then I could've given it 5 stars.

Great book to learn many new tactics and strategies for building wealth through Real Estate investing. This book has changed my life forever. $$$. Don't wait, get started today!

This book offers very basic, albeit solid advice for beginning investors. For most of you out there, the contents of the book are common sense, "I could have thought of that" answers. The main failing of the book is that the authors do not give enough detalied concrete examples of past deals and projects that made them money, just broadview hypotheticals. It's practically worthless for any investor with half a brain.

I read this text in a few days. I was not impressed. All it did was provide a general overview of real estate. I would recommend "The Real Estate Game" as a better general overview. If you want to learn intergral components buy the California Real Estate Principals book. That provides more case studies. Trump was wealthy and invested his money. Every few years his business goes bankrupt and he bails. That initial capital development is the key. Gather some investors that believe in you and your goals and then go from there.

The book of the week was Real Estate 101 by Gary Eldred. The book comes from the Trump University series of books. I love real estate investing because it makes sense in so many ways. There is nothing new about real estate investing. It has made numerous people very wealthy and still is making people rich today. Okay... sure... there has been a lot of people broken by real estate investing too. But it's because they did it wrong. It's people like Eldred and Trump that teach beginners how to invest the right way and how to not lose their shirt.

Eldred likes to look at real estate from an entrepreneurial mind-set. And when I say entrepreneurial I mean being creative in an effort to make profit. So in terms of real estate, you would use that creativity to add value. You can use creativity to market your property using segments, find where your real estate area is headed, and add value to maximize cash flow of your property.

Marketing your property is very important to attract the 'right' type of tenants. There is nothing worse for your real estate career than allowing the 'wrong' people to lease your properties. So how do you get the 'right' person? Well first you have to decide who you want as a tenant. Do you want a college student, a young professional, a retiree, smoker, non-smoker, married, male or female. Once you decide you can start flushing out your strategy for marketing. Being specific is very important. All too often VALS (Values and Lifestyles) are broken into too broad of categories. For instance, there is an obvious difference between different types of college students, but more often than not, an investor will say they avoid renting to "college-students." Well I know from experience that not all college students are the same. In college I treated a property much differently than the cast of "Animal House."

So... for our marketing and property purchasing let's pick a quiet, non-smoking, female, college student with good grades.... What does she want? Since she is quiet, she will appreciate a place that doesn't have noisy neighbors or paper-thin walls, so buy a place that is nicely isolated and has a strictly enforced quiet hours policy. She doesn't smoke, so we can dictate our leases have a no smoking policy. Being female, she will appreciate security, so you should buy in a safe area, have lots of great lighting and market the proximity to a police station. And you want a college student, so you should purchase a property near a college (duh) and she has above average grades, so (coupled with the fact she is quiet) she probably doesn't need to live next to all the bars in town. These are all stereotypes, but if you use them, you are more likely to attract the tenant you are searching for and the types you aren't looking for will search elsewhere. The "Animal House" crowd isn't real big on living in a place the evicts tenants for getting too loud after 11pm, so they won't even consider living in your complex.

When looking for a property it's not always a great idea to look where there is hype. When you go to the place of speculation, you lose sight of the goal (cash flow) and are more focused on the hype and competition. Investors in these areas will purchase a property that will give them negative cash flows with the expectation the market will turn around and make them boat loads because "they heard so." If you want to cash flow a property, just look in your own backyard. You know the city you are live and you know where the nice areas are. Right now there are tons of properties for sale. It is a buy's market! Everything is hugely discounted so you have your pick of the liter.

When you are looking in your city for the best property you should look at where the different neighborhoods are going. You may find a great deal on a house because that neighborhood is dying and not being kept up. That neighborhood could suffer in the future years and your rental rates will have to decrease to keep tenants. It is not good to lose money on a property after you have been cash flowing the 5 years previous. However, the converse can also happen. You can analyze an area that is being heavily developed with nice shopping and restaurants. In that case you might see a cash flowing property increase it's return greatly after 5 years because the area has developed into what might be considered "high-end". If you are investing in your own city you should be able to see the trends. Keep your eyes and ears open for what areas are growing and take advantage. Of course investigate all claims and add common sense. Don't turn into a speculated investor that thinks that if you take a cash flow loss for 5 years, you will be making oodles in the 5 years after.... Just keep the goal of positive cash flowing in mind.

The best way to use your entrepreneurial creativity is to add solid cash flowing concepts to your property. There are a many ways to do this, but a couple popular ones include: adding coin-operated laundry, for-rent furniture, and for-rent storage areas. This is a great opportunity to bring dead space to life within a property. Take that larger extra maintenance room and transform it with several two by fours and ply wood into about 20 storage units that you can charge tenants an extra $20 a month to rent out (that would be an extra $4,800 a year in cash flow). If you have a large population of young professionals, add a pick-up and drop-off dry-cleaning service (using a local dry cleaner... a lot of dry cleaners will even do the pick-up and drop-off for you) and add an extra $5 service fee (if you are able to get 20 tenants a month to take advantage of the offer you add an additional $1,200 in cash flow). Both of these ideas didn't take hardly any effort on your end and both have potential for great EXTRA cash flows. The great thing about real estate is that everything that can be done to initiate extra cash flow has been done already. Just do a little research on what other places are doing and replicate it.

This book has a lot of additional concepts that are a little too dull to address tonight, but if you like what I have written so far, I suggest you pick it up. I don't think you would be ready to invest in your first investment property with just reading this book, but I do think it's a valuable addition to your investment arsenal. If you have any questions on the book don't hesitate to ask. I would be more than happy to help anyone that wants it.

This is a real estate book, but it differs from others that try to target an audience that is only interested in getting rich quick. There is money to be made in real estate especially now with the current climate in the economy. As the author says,

"This perfect storm of tight money and excess property supply (especially foreclosures) has created perfect opportunity for you."

And let's not forget what Warren Buffett said:

"Buy when others remain fearful, sell when others become greedy."

Even though there are opportunities, readers should be realistic about how much money they can make. This book not only teaches investors about real estate, but also about how to have the right mental attitude to succeed in real estate. This investment philosophy is simply real estate value investing. It means that investors should buy properties at the right place, right time, and right price. This is very similar to Warren Buffett's style of investing in stocks where he buys great companies at the right price. I highly recommend this book to any real estate investor.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market