The Weekend Millionaire's Secrets to Investing in Real Estate: How to Become Wealthy in Your Spare Time [Paperback]

Mike Summey (Author), Roger Dawson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 2003

"Everything you need to know to make millions by investing in real estate. Be smart -- take advantage of their invaluable experience to help you reach your financial goals."--Jack Canfield, Co-author, The Power of Focus, Dare to Win, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul(R) series.

A proven formula for making a killing in small real estate investments in all market conditions

Millionaire real estate investor Mike Summey and nationally recognized negotiation expert Roger Dawson team up to offer a complete program for becoming a real estate magnate in your spare time. Unlike all the get-rich-quick real estate investment guides on the shelves, The Weekend Millionaire shows readers how to look beyond price to the fundamentals of what makes a property valuable and to leverage that value in order to build wealth, consistently, over years. It also teaches them an original, win-win negotiating strategy in which the buyer determines the terms of the purchase and lets the seller determine the price.

Readers get clear, step-by-step guidance on how to:

• Find great investment properties
• Approach sellers
• Structure a win-win proposal
• Get a proposal accepted--even with no money down and bad credit
• Negotiate a transaction
• Manage and maintain properties for increasing returns

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Control your financial destiny--and become a Weekend Millionaire!

"Jam-packed with practical ideas that work. Mike and Roger take the potentially complex topic of real estate investing and turn it into a simple process that shows you how to build real wealth, real fast. It's a must read!"

Don Hutson, CEO, U. S. Learning, Inc.

"If you're ready to be a Weekend Millionaire, read this book by brilliant friends Mike and Roger."

Mark Victor Hansen, Co-Author #1 New York Times Best Selling Series, Chicken Soup for the Soul

You don't have to be independently wealthy or a tycoon to get started in real estate. This step-by-step guide shows you how to look beyond price to discover the true value of an investment property. It gives you a long-term strategy, based on sound market principles, to leverage this value to create a substantial cash flow without major capital investment. You will learn how to:

• Find ideal investment properties
• Determine the investment value of a property
• Approach and negotiate with sellers
• Structure win-win proposals
• Manage and maintain properties
• Get started!

About the Author

Mike Summey has taught the Summey Method to thousands of people across North America.

Roger Dawson is a leading negotiation expert whose bestselling cassette program, "Secrets of Power Negotiating," has exceeded $28 million in sales.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 19, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071412913
• ISBN-13: 978-0071412919
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #486,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great real estate investing book, October 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Weekend Millionaire's Secrets to Investing in Real Estate: How to Become Wealthy in Your Spare Time (Paperback)

I never really understood why people get so excited about real estate investing until I read this book. Now I finally got it. The tax shelter, the leverage potential and the long term benefits all make sense now. Best of all I liked the 8 weekends where they tell you exactly what to do to get started. This has to be the best $15 I've ever spent.

251 of 282 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Garbage in, Garbage out, September 1, 2004

By 

Helder Gil (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Weekend Millionaire's Secrets to Investing in Real Estate: How to Become Wealthy in Your Spare Time (Paperback)

As other reviewers have noted, the essence of this book is:

1. Buy a property very cheaply.

2. Rent it out so that you make a profit.

3. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 above over and over.

4. Live a charmed life and wait for the paychecks to keep arriving in the mail each month.

Reality problems:

1. Finding foreclosures is difficult in this real estate market since any foreclosures that are not total disasters will be snapped up super fast.

2. Finding families on the verge of bankruptcy has to be as miserable a career as ambulance chasing. The authors try their best to sugar coat the fact that they are urging you to benefit from other peoples' misery. But no amount of sugar coating can cover up the fact that their advice is the same as ambulance chasers.

3. Asking real estate brokers to take their fee in a mortgage-like payment will usually get you laughed at right out of the brokers' offices. They often see suckers trying to use this program. Word to the wise: they don't fall for it (unless they have a lack of brain cells) because they want their money front and center, not bits and pieces of it for the next 10 or so years.

4. Finding something "cheap" in most of the major cosmopolitan areas is nearly impossible these days. If something is cheap in a hot market, that means either that the neighbors are members of a drug cartel or that there is a nuclear waste facility under the property. Unless you're buying sheds in the middle of the boondocks, nothing is cheap these days.

5. What about taxes, insurance, renovations, bad tenants, natural/man-made disasters and their effects on your property? Well, the authors pay some lip service to these concerns, but otherwise they don't worry too much about it.

The only thing of real value is the explanation of calculating ROI and some charts that you on your own can make into Excel spreadsheets. It also teaches you some accounting and home buying basics. Of course, you can get the exact same basics for free on many different websites.

Save yourself the cost of this book. Buying it just makes the authors even more fabulously wealthy and encourages them to write more books for unsuspecting audiences.

42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read if you are serious about real estate, November 18, 2004

By 

John Corey "active RE investor" (London England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Weekend Millionaire's Secrets to Investing in Real Estate: How to Become Wealthy in Your Spare Time (Paperback)

I have been investing for over 21 years and started with Nothing Down by Robert Allen. My first two deals were 'nothing down'.

Over the years I have done a lot of deals and different things work in different situations.

The Weekend Millionaire is one of the best books for an investor who wants to learn how to invest for long term income. It is not a get rich quick book. The book assumes you have a day job, you pay your bills and have a life other then real estate.

I was impressed that they take you from finding a property to inspecting it to coming up with the offer price and then what to do if the seller says 'yes' or 'no'.

The book does not cover all styles on RE investing. No book could and this one clearly does not even try to cover everything. The advice given is very practical and will help the reader create real wealth if the reader implements what they learn.

One generic comment. All the books, tapes, seminars and similar are worth what you pay or are completely worthless depending on if you apply the information. You can make a lot of money with real estate. You can also spend a lot of time and money getting ready and never have any success. You really need to get out there and pound the pavement. This book will be a great guide if you want to apply what you learn.

John