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

by Mike Summey (Author), Roger Dawson (Author) "We don't say that real estate investing is the only way to get rich..." (more)
Key Phrases: nibble gambit, higher authority gambit, guy gambit, Weekend Millionaire, Elm Street, Structuring Your First Deal (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"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

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!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 19, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071412913
• ISBN-13: 978-0071412919
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #153,572 in Books (See Bestsellers 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

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.

247 of 277 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)

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.

80 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tremendous, February 2, 2004

By	whiskey888 (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Easily the best real estate investing book I've read. This is a no-nonsense, very practical look at how to buy single-family homes and rent them out. It's a page-turner, it doesn't get lost in the details yet is descriptive enough for people to get started. The authors' philosophy is to generate an income stream through renting your properties, and then use the properties as leverage for buying subsequent properties. They basically advocate NEVER selling them unless they're not profitable.

As other reviewers have pointed out, the sections on negotiating are excellent and should not be taken lightly. The techniques they describe were eye-opening, I was shocked at how they might be used, or used against me! To many, the section on negotating may even be more useful than the rest of the book.

To further motivate you to get started, the book includes 8 chapters at the end, each representing one week, that describe exactly what to do in your first 8 weeks of getting started. Very well written, i've already recommended this book to several others.

The authors correctly convince you that the terms of the deal are often as important, or more important, than the selling price. This is because you can still get a good return on investment (ROI) even if you pay more than the asking price. Then, to me, the only weakness in this book relates to financing homes in very expensive markets. The authors advocate only buying houses within a 10-mile radius of where you live. Sure, if you have so-so credit and little money, you can probably scrape up financing for homes in the $50000-$100000 range. But what if you're like me, in the San Francisco Bay Area, where 1300 sq foot homes in decent neighborhoods can go for $300-400k? This is a VERY high barrier for entry. This becomes laughable when the authors describe an example where they bought a 12000 sq foot manufacturing facility for $200k, and the challenges they faced with making this facility profitable when rented. I'm not sure that any amount of creative financing will be able to help some people in markets like this.