Real Estate investing is a fantastic source of passive income and one of the best ways to build your wealth over the long run, especially if you’re entrepreneurial minded.
I mean, wouldn’t it be fantastic to live off the monthly rental collected from your properties? And real estate investing can be done without a significant level of savings.
The advantages of real estate are many: the passive cash flow, the tax benefits, the leverage, the capital appreciation on the long run or the hedge against inflation.
However, real estate investing is not something you can just improvise. It definitely has a learning curve. Finding the best deals, assessing the investment opportunities, negotiating the financing, concluding acquisitions, all of that can be a bit overwhelming.
In order to help you, I’ve selected the Top 10 books on Real estate Investing. They should guide you through the essential steps, especially if you don’t know where to start.
How have I built this shortlist?
In order to go straight to the very best Real Estate investing books, here’s the process I’ve followed:
- I have selected the books on Amazon that are relevant to Real Estate investing
- I eliminated those with reviews below 4 stars or low numbers of reviews (such as all the cheap of free e-books)
- That list of books has then been cross-referenced with other leading websites for the books they reference under Real Estate investing (Entrepreneur.com, businessinsider.com, inc.com, forbes.com)
- I finished by establishing the shortlist and wrote the independent reviews below taking into account book content, site reviews and above all user reviews
So here are the Top 10 Real Estate Investing books you can find:
1. Crushing it in Apartments and Commercial Real Estate
How a Small Investor Can Make It Big, by Brian H Murray
Brian Murray is a real life example of someone who started from scratch and built a multi-million dollar real estate company (Washington Street Properties) out of sheer determination and passion.
Crushing it in Apartments and Real Estate is a rough guide to real estate investing, with a very effective approach to finding and financing commercial property.
It will teach you how to grow your portfolio on your own, taking from Murray’s own experience. He shares with us a lot of real-time stories about his own path to success.
Contents of the book:Mastering the fundamentals, bootstrapping it, exploiting Home field advantage, picking the best battleground, finding the right property, analyzing properties, structuring deals creatively, working with banks, running your real estate as a business, adding value, lowering the rents and leasing it up, creating a factory, being passionate and having a purpose, buying and holding, striving for balance, keep learning and getting started.
2. The Book on Rental Property Investing
How to Create Wealth and Passive Income Through Intelligent Buy and Hold Real Estate Investing! by Brandon Turner
Brandon Turner is the co-host of the BiggerPockets with Joshua Dorkin, a successful podcast featuring interviews with investors of various backgrounds, niches and experience levels.
This Book on Rental Property Investing addresses everything you need to know to get started. It will even give you clear game plans on how to make $1,000,000 dollars through rental properties.
Readers appreciate the fact that the content is readily actionable for new and active real estate investors.
Starting with the reasons why you should love rental properties, the author goes on to give us the five keys to rental property success.
He gives us four sample plans, and explains who the ten members of your real estate team should be. Analyzing a rental property, investing while living in an expensive area, or types of rental properties are also topics he covers.
And oh yes, never forget that real estate boils down to just three things location location location.
Brandon Turner explains how to find rental properties, which ones make the best rentals and how to submit an offer. He covers negotiation, financing, how to get your loan approved, and goes on to reveal the full due diligence process.
After closing the deal, you will need to start managing your rentals, that’s also covered in the book in an entire Chapter.
To conclude, if you want to build cash flow through rental properties, you should seriously consider this book.
3. Rich Dad Poor Dad
What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki
This book has been reviewed in our list of Top Investment Books for Begginners.
4. The Millionaire Real Estate Investor
by Gary Keller and Dave Jenks
The cover of this book says “Anyone can do it…. not everyone will…. will you?”.
The Millionaire Real Estate Investor enjoys amazing ratings on most websites. It is a handbook that is very researched and takes its insights from interviews with 100 millionaire real estate investors who have made it and acquired considerable wealth through real estate investing.
The strategies described by Gary Keller will inspire you to start investing.
The first part of the book is about charting the course, while the second part looks at the four stages of a successful strategy:
- Think a million (the spiritual journey of wealth building)
- Buy a million (the five models of millionaire investor)
- Own a million (the seventeen issues of own a million)
- Receive a million (achieve $1 million in annual cash flow)
Part Three is about putting it all together, establishing you base camp and establishing a financial track to run on.
5. The ABCs of Real Estate Investing
The Secrets of Finding Hidden Profits Most Investors Miss (Rich Dad Advisors) by Ken McElroy
This ABC outlines the steps you need to take to achieve financial independence via real estate passive income.
Ken McElroy has close to 30 years experience at at a multi-family asset and property management firm that has purchased well over $400 million in properties in the past years.
The book is published by Rich Dad Advisors, a company set up by the famous Robert Kiyosaki. Inside, Ken McElroy shares his technique for assessing a property’s value, how to perform research or how to setup a team.
Whether you are an aspiring real estate investor or a pro, this book is full of actionable insights, being the fruit of years of experience from an industry veteran.
6. The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money Down
Real Life Strategies for Investing in Real Estate Using Other People’s Money by Brandon Turner
Brandon Turner’s book challenges the idea that having little or no capital will prevent you from becoming a real estate investor. Having no cash should not be a deterrent.
The author is also the co-host of the well known Biggerpockets podcast, in which he challenges people to step beyond the hype and gives them real life examples and strategies that they can start applying.
It all starts with the mindset, and being convinced that a lack of funds is not an obstacle. There are many strategies that can be applied creatively.
This book will teach you:
- the art of creative real estate investing, with four basic rules
- how to invest in owner occupied investment properties, and the corresponding loans
- how to work with partnerships
- how to get home equity loans and lines of credit
- strategies for using hard money
- how to raise private money to fund your deals
- lease options, what they are, the risks and drawbacks
- seller financing, how to find some
- real estate wholesaling
- creative combinations
7. Build a Rental Property Empire
The no-nonsense book on finding deals, financing the right way, and managing wisely by Mark Ferguson
In this book, Mark Ferguson goes into all the details of successful real estate investing strategies. Finding the best deals, acquiring the properties, managing them. It is all covered, in a simple, direct and clear to understand writing style.
The author is a long time Real Estate investor but also the creator of the Investformore.com website, enjoying a huge online following and visitors counted in millions.
Aside from his realtor business, Ferguson has built for himself a group of 16 properties from which he extracts a yearly income of $90,000, so his advice and strategies are firsthand.
This book will teach you:
- why real estate can make you richer than stocks
- the risks associated with real estate investing
- what makes a good investment and how do you know what type of property to buy
- how to buy property below market value
- how to finance and pay for your properties
- what to do when you have less cash
- repairing and maintaining properties
- managing your properties
- exit strategies for rental properties
- how to build a real estate property empire
8. Getting The Money
The Simple System for Getting Private Money for Your Real Estate Deals by Susan Lassiter-Lyons
Real Estate can be a tremendous way to build your wealth, nobody denies that, but if you have limited savings, the key to success will come from your ability to raise funds. And the cover of this book reads “What if You Had Access to 1 Million Dollars in Private Funding for Your Real Estate Business?”
So the book is centered around the framework you need to build in order to raise private capital to buy properties. If you have considered real estate investing but don’t know where to start, this is a book for you.
What it will teach you:
- mapping your action plan, creating your program and building your team
- knowing where the money lies
- marketing strategies and presentation skills to secure financing, even psychological aspects
- closing the deal and managing your money
- real life stories and examples of people who used the Getting the Money system
9. The Sale of a Lifetime
How the Great Bubble Burst of 2017-2019 Can Make You Rich by Harry S. Dent Jr.
Harry S. Dent Jr is the bestselling author of The Demographic Cliff and the editor of the Boom & Bust newsletter. He has earned himself a worldwide reputation for predicting world economic trends and financial markets for over 30 years.
In this book, he comes with the dire warning of an imminent crisis, whose consequences could be devastating. A crisis coming in the wake of the amazing 2009-2015 bull market, with a correction that could well be a once in a century opportunity for those seeking to grow considerable wealth.
The consequences could well be devastating but at the same time it could be The Sale of a Lifetime.
The book has five parts:
- How to Identify a Bubble
- A brief (But Thorough) History of Bubbles
- Our Power to Predict (how Bursting Bubbles Makes Investors Rich)
- The Greatest Bubble and Reset of Our Lifetime
- Profiting from the Sale of a Lifetime
10. The Book on Flipping Houses
How to Buy, Rehab, and Resell Residential Properties by J Scott
J Scott is a well known professional house fix-and-flipper, author of the famous 123Flip.com website.
The concept of flipping is simple: you buy an underrated property at a low price, fix it and resell it for a profit.
Whether you are a total newbie to the concept, or a seasoned professional, this book covers the whole process of house flipping:
- What is House Flipping, does it still work?
- How much can you earn Flipping Houses?
- Getting your Financing in Order
- Finding your Real Estate Agent
- Where should you buy?
- What should you buy?
- Who should you buy from?
- How will you find deals?
- The Flip Formula
- Looking at Properties
- Making Offers, your due diligence
- Create your Statement of Work (SoW)
- Create your Budget and your Schedule
- Hiring Contractors and Managing your Rehab
- Staging
- Buyer Due Diligence
- The Closing
Well, that’s about it for our Top 10 list.
If you’d like to share with us books that you feel should be in this list, don’t hesitate and drop us a comment below !
Further readings
I hope this review will be helpful. If you want to thank me, buy me a coffee 😉
