Packed with tips on buying, financing, and improving properties

With up-to-date information on all your mortgage options.

From homes and apartment buildings to commercial and industrial properties, this friendly guide covers a wealth of real estate investments and financing options. With practical tools and expert advice, top real estate authors Eric Tyson and Robert Griswold help you maximize your investments - and watch your profits grow.

Praise for Real Estate Investing For Dummies.

"This is simply the best book on the topic."

--Randall Bell, Author, Home Owner's Manual

"Tyson and Griswold have truly opened the world of real estate investing to all by tackling often complex issues in this easy to understand and use book. I can't think of a better way to get smart about building wealth through rental properties than to read their excellent Real Estate Investing For Dummies!"

--Vern Hoven, CPA.

Discover how to:

• Make real estate a part of you long-term investment plan
• Pick the best properties for profit and your situation
• Get the best deals on financing
• Master the art of property valuation
• Manage your risk and insure your properties

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Tyson, a financial counselor, and Griswold, a veteran real estate investor, outline proven real estate investment strategies that readers of varied economic means can use to build wealth. Emphasis is on residential properties, from single-family homes to condominiums and apartments, with additional material on office, industrial, and retail properties and undeveloped land. Chapters are in sections on understanding real estate as an investment, raising capital, finding and evaluating properties, and operating the property. A sample purchase agreement is included.
Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Tyson, a financial counselor, and Griswold, a veteran real estate investor, outline proven real estate investment strategies that readers of varied economic means can use to build wealth. Emphasis is on residential properties, from single-family homes to condominiums and apartments, with additional material on office, industrial, and retail properties and undeveloped land. Chapters are in sections on understanding real estate as an investment, raising capital, finding and evaluating properties, and operating the property. A sample purchase agreement is included. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Real Estate Investing For Dummies, 2nd Edition contains approximately 20-25 percent updated and revised content, including expanded coverage on the challenges and opportunities that accompany investing in a down real estate market. In addition to other general updates, Eric and Ray expand on the subjects of flipping properites — a practice that they advised (and still advise) readers to approach with caution in the first edition, published at the height of the flipping frenzy — and foreclosure investing — today's "it" real estate subject that is too often portrayed as a get-rich-overnight proposition.

Tyson and Griswold cover all the basics of real estate investing for beginners, as well as more complicated investment strategies for anyone serious about building long-term wealth.

Eric Tyson, MBA,is a best-selling author and syndicated columnist. Through his counseling, writing, and teaching, he equips people to manage their personal finances better and successfully direct their investments. Eric is a former management consultant to Fortune 500 financial service firms and has successfully invested in real estate for more than two decades.

Eric earned his Bachelor’s degree in economics at Yale and an MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Despite these handicaps to clear thinking, he had the good sense to start his own company, which took an innovative approach to teaching people of all economic means about investing and money.

An accomplished freelance personal finance writer, Eric is the author of the national bestsellers Personal Finance For Dummiesand Investing For Dummiesco-author of Home Buying For Dummiesand Taxes For Dummiesand was an award-winning columnist for the San Francisco Examiner.His work has been featured and quoted in dozens of national and local publications, including Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine,the Los Angeles Times,and Bottom Line/Personal;and on NBC’s Today Show,ABC, CNBC, PBS’s Nightly Business Report,CNN, CBS national radio, Bloomberg Business Radio, and Business Radio Network. He’s also been a featured speaker at a White House conference on retirement planning.

Despite his “wealth” of financial knowledge, Eric is one of the rest of us. He maintains a large inventory of bumblebee colored computer books on his desk for those frequent times when his computer makes the (decreasing amount of) hair on his head fall out.

Robert S. Griswold, MSBA,is a successful real estate investor and hands-on property manager with a large portfolio of residential and commercial rental properties who uses print and broadcast journalism to bring his many years of experience to his readers, listeners, and viewers.

He is the author of Property Management For Dummiesand the host of a live weekly radio talk show, Real Estate Today!,now in its 14th year (www.retodayradio.com). Robert is also the real estate expert for NBC San Diego with a regular on-air live caller segment since 1995. He’s also the lead columnist for the syndicated “Rental Roundtable” and “Rental Forum” columns published in dozens of major newspapers throughout the country and has been recognized twice as the #1 real estate broadcast journalist in the nation by the National Association of Real Estate Editors.

Robert’s educational background includes having earned BS and two master’s degrees in real estate, business economics, and finance from the University of Southern California. His real estate investing and managing professional designations include the CRE (counselor of real estate), the CPM (certified property manager), the CCIM (certified commercial investment member), and the GRI (graduate, Realtor Institute).

Mr. Griswold has been retained on hundreds of legal matters as an expert in the standard of care and custom and practice for all aspects of real estate ownership and management in both state and federal cases throughout the country. Robert is the president of Griswold Real Estate Management, managing residential, commercial, retail, and industrial properties throughout southern California and Nevada.

On a personal level, Robert enjoys travel (particularly cruises), sports, and family activities. He truly enjoys real estate and tries to keep life in perspective through humor!

Introduction.

Part I: Understanding Real Estate as an Investment.

Chapter 1: Stacking Real Estate Up Against Other Investments.

Chapter 2: Covering the Landscape of Common Real Estate Investments.

Chapter 3: Even More Real Estate Investments.

Chapter 4: Building Your Team.

Part II: How to Get the Money: Raising Capital and Financing.

Chapter 5: Sources of Capital.

Chapter 6: Financing Your Property Purchases.

Chapter 7: Shopping for and Securing the Best Mortgage Terms.

Part III: Finding and Evaluating Properties.

Chapter 8: Location, Location, Value.

Chapter 9: Examining Leases and Understanding Value.

Chapter 10: Crunching the Numbers: How Much Should I Pay?

Chapter 11: Preparing to Make an Offer.

Chapter 12: Due Diligence, Property Inspections, and Closing.

Part IV: Operating the Property.

Chapter 13: Landlording 101.

Chapter 14: Protecting Your Investment: Insurance and Risk Management.

Chapter 15: Recordkeeping and Accounting.

Chapter 16: Tax Considerations and Exit Strategies.

Part V: The Part of Tens.

Chapter 17: More than Ten Ways to Increase a Property’s Return.

Chapter 18: Ten Steps to a Real Estate Fortune (Or a Great Second Income).

Appendix: Sample Purchase Agreement.

Index.