Tuesday 2011-08-30

The Real Estate Handbook by Timothy Haight and Daniel Singer

These guys appear to be the Click and Clack of Real Estate.

Unfortunately, some of their numerical examples (see "Golden Arms" in the Apartments chapter, which was sold in a good market for USD 30 Million = 20 times annual taxes or 7.89 times rents) appear to have been tweaked to match the moral of their story and do not match the material evidence presented.

The damage is totaled up in Table 8.13. Signing the contract to purchase the five condos at Pleasure World leads to a present value loss of USD 345,211. Flipping condos does not always go as planned. There are two ways to learn this lesson. One is from experience.
-- Condominiums
One hears talk of being able to hire an independent "utility man" who will be happy to come to your property and do efficient, quality repairs at any hour of the day and night for USD 10. We have never encountered such a person. We think he is mythical.
-- Residential Real Estate