The book is well written and lucid. Nonspecialists can understand it well. I heard talking heads on TV and radio described tranches, REITs, "liar loans," "warehouse line of credit," and so on. The authors describe these terms--and others--clearly and in such a way that the reader can begin to see what had happened--and why the meltdown in the mortgage world should not be seen as so surprising.

It is also the story of clever businessmen and women, who could develop new tools for investment from subprime loans. Subprime loans, simply, are (Page 325): "A loan originated by a lender that is A- to D in quality. Consumers with the best credit ratings. . .are considered 'A' credit quality." In short, loans are being made to purchasers who carry some to a lot of risk. If they can't keep paying their mortgages, the house of cards can fall down. And that is, in short, what happened (although the story is quite a bit more complex than that). • Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis

While many real estate markets have cooled off, there are major hot spots throughout the country that are booming due to population growth and urban expansion. These emerging markets are where the next wave of big-time real estate profits will be found. In Emerging Real Estate Markets, David Lindahl shows you how to find these markets, get started investing with little of your own cash, and maximize your profits.

The key lies in knowing how real estate markets cycle through ups and downs. If you know what to look for, you can tell when a market is about to heat up. Invest at the right time in the right place, and your profits will be dramatic. Does that sound too good to be true? It's not. The tactics you'll read here helped Lindahl, a landscaper when he started investing in real estate, to build a real estate empire!

Even if your market isn't currently heating up, Lindahl will show you long-distance "hands-off" strategies for finding and investing in other markets that are. He also provides practical strategies for investing in markets in any stage of the cycle so you can invest no matter where you are or where your market is. • Emerging Real Estate Markets: How to Find and Profit from Up-and-Coming Areas

The trusted guide that Backwoods Home magazine calls ""the bible"" of buying rural property. City dwellers and suburbanites who dream of a simpler life in the country will appreciate the Schers' straightforward explanations of the particulars of buying rural land. Everything is covered in these pages, from looking for property, through evaluating it and negotiating price, to the contract of sale. Important topics such as water and easement rights, zoning, and eminent domain are made clear. Sample legal forms and checklists provide the basics, and resource listings point to sources of regional and local information, including Internet sites. A special chapter discusses Canada's real estate market. Covering current property laws and financing options, this comprehensive resource offers insiders' knowledge on how to avoid common pitfalls and prevent costly mistakes.

"The obvious place to start is the financial crisis and the clearest guide to it that I've read is Financial Shock by Mark Zandi...it is an impressively lucid guide to the big issues." --The New York Times "In Financial Shock, Mr. Zandi provides a concise and lucid account of the economic, political and regulatory forces behind this binge." --The Wall Street Journal "Aggressive builders, greedy lenders, optimistic home buyers: Zandi succinctly dissects the mortgage mess from start to (one hopes) finish." --U.S. News and World Report "A more detailed look at the crisis comes from economist Mark Zandi, co-founder of Moody's Economy.com. His "Financial Shock" delves deeply into the history of the mortgage market, the bad loans, the globalization of trashy subprime paper and how homebuilders ran amok. Zandi's analysis is eye-opening...he paints an impressive, more nuanced picture." --Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine "If you wonder how it could be possible for a subprime mortgage loan to bring the global financial system and the U.S. economy to its knees, you should read this book. No one is better qualified to provide this insight and advice than Mark Zandi." --Larry Kudlow, Host, CNBC's Kudlow & Company "Every once in a while a book comes along that's so important, it commands recognition. This is one of them. Zandi provides a rilliant blow-by-blow account of how greed, stupidity, and recklessness brought the first major economic crises of the 21st entury and the most serious since the Great Depression." --Bernard Baumohl,Managing Director • Financial Shock: A 360º Look at the Subprime Mortgage Implosion, and How to Avoid the Next Financial Crisis

Great information for anyone starting out in the fixer-upper business. The author has served his apprenticeship in the trenches. -- Fixer Jay P. DeCima, Investor and Author.  It's full of useful tips and advice. I have used these methods to make a good living in real estate. -- Paul Hoyt, Real Estate Investor, Tucson, Arizona

Terry Sprouse has created a profitable rental business in his spare time. What sets him apart is he took action -- Bob Zachmeier, Investor, Educator, Author. This book is beyond a simple how-to guide, it provides inspiration for seekers of a way to achieve financial success -- Cynthia Pope, Ph.D., Connecticut

With the wit of Will Rogers, this book provides simple guidelines for restoring homes, and sanity to our crazy lives. -- M. D. Matlock, Ph.D., P.E., C.S.E., President, American Ecological Engineering Society, Award-winning designer of green neighborhoods for Habitat for Humanity, Professor of Ecological Engineering, University of Arkansas. Review Great information for anyone starting out in the fixer-upper business. The author has served his apprenticeship in the trenches.• Fix 'em Up, Rent 'em Out: How to Start Your Own House Fix-up & Rental Business in Your Spare Time; or, Investing in Real Estate and Creating Wealth with Fixer-Upper Houses

From Publishers Weekly Dent, former strategic consultant at Bain & Company, outlines the features of what he predicts will be the next Great Depression. The author argues that demographic trends were the greatest drivers of our economy, along with radical new technologies, working together to follow a four-stage life cycle of innovation, growth, shakeout, and maturity. While Dent's doomsday predictions are depressing, his theories are persuasive and elaborated in meticulous descriptions of historic economic trends and cycles. The author's candor is refreshing, especially when he discusses how equity investments experience a wide variety of returns, including substantial losses or extraordinary gains—and that the financial press has failed to remind the public of this fact. The book offers welcome portfolio allocation strategies during an economic crisis, as well as the bad news that the worst of the housing downturn will occur between 2010 and 2013. Along with domestic forecasts, Dent addresses terrorism's economic roots and the growth of megacities in South and East Asia with characteristic thoroughness. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

According to MSN Money columnist William A. Fleckenstein, Greenspan's nearly 19-year career as Federal Reserve Chairman is even worse than anyone imagined. Labeled “Mr. Bubble” by the New York Times, Greenspan was nothing less than a serial bubble blower with a long history of bad decision-making. His famous “Greenspan Put” fueled the perception of a Goldilocks economy-but, as this explosive exposé reveals, the bear has finally caught up with Goldilocks.

The stock market crash of 1987 The Savings & Loan crisis The collapse of Long Term Capital Management The tech bubble of 2000 The feared Y2K disaster The credit bubble and real estate crisis of 2007 Fleckenstein explains just how far-reaching Greenspan's mess has been flung, and presents damning evidence that contradicts the former Fed chief's public naiveté concerning shifts in the market and economy. He also points to a disturbing fact, that throughout his career, Greenspan not only made costly mistakes, but made the same ones-over and over again. And not only was he never able to recognize or admit to those mistakes, he constantly rewrote his own history to justify them. Greenspan's Bubbles offers a lock-stock-and-barrel portrait of a flawed but fascinating man whose words and actions have led a whole generation astray, and whose legacy will continue to challenge us in the years ahead. • GREENSPAN'S BUBBLES: THE AGE OF IGNORANCE AT THE FEDERAL RESERVE

This For Dummies guide also includes quite a bit of valuable information most people would not think of when buying a home. Sandbagging by mortgage companies is moderately more common than you might expect in a down market and this guide tells you how to recognize it. The authors also explain why sellers, in general, are not very realistic about what their property is worth and how to effectively use the internet when searching for a home. Hint, mortgage calculators are not nearly as useful as they are convenient. You should know from your own budget (including contributions for retirement savings) what you can afford, and not be pushed into a house beyond your means by a calculator that only considers your income and debt ratios. Finally, the book covers the psychology of home purchases, including buyers remorse and negotiations. • Home Buying For Dummies, 4th Edition

Want to have homebuyers knocking down your door?

Home Staging For Dummies delivers all the secrets to making your home stand out, sell faster, and bring in more money! It shows you how to make improvements room by room and generate a higher profit in the most cost- and time-effective way. Featuring eight full-color pages of instructive before-and-after photos, this completely practical guide demonstrates how and why to eliminate clutter, make repairs, arrange furnishings, and pave the way for buyers to make an emotional connection to your house. You’ll get a handle on what buyers want and how to show it to them, find plenty of do-it-yourself tasks that add real value to your home, and get tips on producing photos of your home that will have buyers craving to see more! Discover how to: • Home Staging For Dummies (For Dummies (Home & Garden))

Compared with single-family homes, multi-family properties hold much greater profit potential and allow you to earn more money on each deal you complete. There is also far less competition in the multi-family market. In addition, having more units under a single roof reduces your investment risk and offers higher long-term profits. The rewards of multi-family investing are obvious, but how can you benefit when you have very little time or money?

Multi-Family Millions is the step-by-step guide that shows you how to get into the multi-family game—and get out with big profits. It provides expert coverage of the most effective investing strategies and gives you guidance on every stage of the process—from finding properties with great profit potential to buying, renovating, and reselling them for big money • Multi-Family Millions: How Anyone Can Reposition Apartments for Big Profits

Say goodbye to landlords and laundromats with Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home. This timely title will help you find the right place to live and invest in -- and even have fun doing it.

Filled with interesting facts, real-life stories and common pitfalls to avoid, this book provides everything you need to select the right house, the right mortgage, the right agent, the right inspections -- and much more.

Along with this step-by-step handbook, you'll get The Homebuyer's Toolkit, a CD-ROM that includes dozens of forms and MP3s which will help you find the right place, crunch the numbers, interview real estate professionals, and even borrow down payment money from your parents. The brand new 2nd edition of Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home is fully updated to reflect the dramatically changing housing market and includes new information on buying foreclosed and bank-owned properties, including what to look for when you're considering these types of homes. You'll get the most up-to-date information on the increasingly strict mortgage market, plus additional tips on how to "green" your new home. • Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home (book with CD-Rom & Audio)

Pre-foreclosure real estate is one of the hottest investment opportunities on the market. The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investors Kit offers step-by-step instruction and no-nonsense advice on how to find great deals, estimate fair market value, negotiate with sellers, sell your property on your own, and win big in real estate. Youll learn how to get the best deals on foreclosure properties before they go to auction and utilize simple ready-made worksheets, checklists, forms, and agreements that make getting started easy. Even people of modest means can get into pre-foreclosure investing—all it takes is a little hard work, persistence, and the tools youll find in this handy guide.

Chosen as one of Robert J. Bruss' 10 best real estate books of 2005! "This ultra-complete book reveals virtually everything necessary to profitably acquire foreclosure distress properties without making costly mistakes."-Robert J. Bruss, nationally syndicated real estate columnist • The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investor's Kit: How to Make Money Buying Distressed Real Estate -- Before the Public Auction

Home foreclosures are at their highest peak in years; you can be one of the thousands earning six-figure incomes in this lucrative segment of the real estate marketplace. You can do this part-time or full-time. Learn how to buy directly from property owners whose mortgage loans are in default and stay away from courthouse-bidding feuds. With the help of this new book, property investing can be a very lucrative line of work. You will learn how to identify the most valuable properties and control every step of the procedure.

The Pre-Foreclosure Real Estate Handbook is the resource for novices and pros alike; it will guide you through every step of the process including finding properties, negotiating, and closing on your first deal. This new exhaustively researched book will arm you with hundreds of innovative ideas that you can put to use right away. This book gives you the proven strategies, innovative ideas, and case studies from experts to help you get more with less time and effort. • The Pre-Foreclosure Real Estate Handbook: Insider Secrets to Locating and Purchasing Pre-Foreclosed Properties in Any Market

For first-timers and experienced residential investors alike, Trump University Commercial Real Estate Investing 101 provides a clear path to breaking into the lucrative field of commercial investing. Combining the biggest name in business with lessons from a top real estate investor, this practical guide covers all the ins and outs of successful, profitable investing in apartment buildings and small commercial properties.

Author David Lindahl has been involved in hundreds of real estate deals and currently controls over $240 million in real estate. In each chapter, Lindahl covers the big issues in commercial investing by breaking them down into smaller, easily understood ideas in a straightforward, non-technical way. He explains step by step how you can get started in commercial investing or make the leap from residential markets to more profitable commercial markets.

Packed with investing lessons you'll be glad you didn't have to learn the hard way, this practical, hands-on guide not only shows you the ropes but keeps you from getting tangled up in bad deals. You'll discover how to get into the commercial investing game without a huge bankroll, how to read markets and buy at the perfect time, and how to lock in your profits early to guarantee a good deal.  • Trump University Commercial Real Estate 101: How Small Investors Can Get Started and Make It Big

Robert Shiller's track record was impressive at first. He wrote Market volatility in 1992 outlining how stock price volatility was due to psychological speculation as it was disconnected from economic fundamentals. He was right as the stock gyrations in 1987 and 1989 demonstrated. In 2000, he wrote the excellent Irrational Exuberance stating stock prices bubbled up and were bound for a crash. Within three months the NASDAQ did exactly that loosing more than half its value taking the rest of the market on a three year brutal downturn (dot.com Bubble). At this stage, we thought Shiller was blessed with superior insight. Then, he lost his edge by envisioning retail financial insurance products to protect against risks often not worth covering as introduced in his strange The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st Century. This book recycles many of those confused concepts. • The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It

Want to get rich through real estate? Then you need The ABC's of Real Estate Investing. It's the definitive guide that will teach you how to find property, evaluate its worth, negotiate the deal and make money in the process. There are no 'get rich quick' tricks on these pages, just proven methods that deliver bottom-line profits and increased property values. -Ken McElroy, Real Estate Investor, Property Management Expert, Business Owner, and Author The ABC's of Real Estate Investing will: * Achieve wealth and cash flow through real estate * Overcome the myths that are holding you back * Find property with real profit potential * Evaluate a property and set your own purchase price * Negotiate the deal based on the numbers * Discover hidden profits in the properties you buy or own * Increase your income through proven property management techniques.

Real Estate Advantages is for first-time as well as seasonedreal estate investors.It reveals the tax and legal loopholes availableand most important, how they can be used together to not only maximize yourincome--but accelerate your income from real estate investing.SharonLechter and Rich Dad's Advisor Garrett Sutton team up for the first time todeliver practical, proven strategies and formulas--from the perspective ofsuccessful investors, CPAs and asset protection attorneys--for acheivingthe greatest leverage from real estate investing.Written ineasy-to-understand language, this book de-mystifies the legal and taxaspects of investing with easy-to-follow, real life examples. Real EstateAdvantages reveals how you can find good advisors, create steady monthlyincome, reduce your risk, pay less in taxes, make more money with yourbanker's money and, best of all, the government helps you!

After working my way through all ten books, I can tell you without reservation that Gallinelli's book is head and shoulders above the rest. There was something to be learned from each them, of course, but the others tended to get a bit fuzzy about the financial details, often substituting simplistic rules of thumb for real analysis or doing a hand wave just about the time I needed hard information. Worse, there was a disturbing lack of consistency among the books where they did provide financial details, and there was no obvious way to sort out which book had the right take on a particular calculation or financial ratio. And it seems to me that, important as general principles may be, if the financials don't work then nothing else matters very much.

Fortunately, Gallinelli took me right down into the nitty gritty stuff and showed me, step by step, just how the whole business works. He was also the only author to even consider the possibility that I, as a modern-day investor, might have the ability to run these calculations in a spreadsheet, and he provides clear instructions for entering the required formulas in Excel. Not that you have to be an Excel user to benefit from this book; the financial analyses he describes are absolutely essential to knowing what you're getting into, and you need to run them whether you do it on a calculator, use packaged financial analysis software, or build your own spreadshet. But for those who do know how to use Excel, it's a tremendous benefit to have the step-by-step instructions right there.