Learn real estate investing
Plain-language lessons, in order, with the sources each one was written from.
Start here
The kinds of property, and the seminar pitches to recognize before you spend money on training.
- Types of property: Houses, condos, small and large apartment buildings, retail, office, industrial and land.
- Seminar red flags: How seminar and coaching scams work, the warning signs regulators found, and how to evaluate financing without sales pressure.
Is it a deal?
The research tools, then running the numbers.
- Tools and tricks of the trade: Records, maps, comps and checklists investors use to research a property.
- Analyzing a deal: Value, repairs, rents, expenses and returns: the numbers that decide whether a deal works.
Paying for it
Loans and creative financing.
- Traditional financing: Mortgages, commercial loans, hard-money and bridge loans: how each works and what it costs.
- Creative financing: Seller financing, partnerships and other structures, with the legal risks to know first.
Buying it
When to walk away, making an offer and closing, and how forced sales work in your state.
- When to walk away: The numbers, building problems, title and HOA issues and auction terms that should make you pass on a deal.
- Making an offer and closing: Who your agent works for, what goes into an offer, negotiating after the inspection, and the steps from an accepted offer to the keys.
- Buying at forced sales: Tax, foreclosure, sheriff and IRS sales across Nevada, California, Arizona, Utah and Texas, with step-by-step guides.
After you buy
Running a rental, and the taxes from purchase to sale.
- Running a rental: The first weeks, tenant screening and fair housing, deposits, entry and rent rules in your state, and records for taxes.
- Taxes from purchase to sale: Transfer and property tax, rental income and depreciation, how flips are taxed, selling, 1031 exchanges and each state’s income tax.
Go further
Commercial property, who invests where, holding title and LLCs, benefits for veterans, and the books we recommend.
- Residential vs. commercial: How the two markets differ: who buys, how prices are set, loans, leases and risk.
- Who invests where, and why: The kinds of investors in each market, and why someone picks one property type over another.
- Holding title and structuring deals: Ways to hold title, owning through an LLC, 1031 exchanges, installment sales and seller credits.
- Benefits for veterans: VA loans, the funding fee exemption, servicemember protections, and veteran property tax breaks in your state.
- Recommended reading: Books worth reading, picked for new investors.