How to Invest in Real Estate And Pay Little or No Taxes Use Tax Smart Loopholes to Boost Your Profits By 40
May 5, 2009 by Investing Today · Leave a Comment
How you can realize the dream of tax-free real estate investment
Record numbers of investors are choosing real estate as a safe alternative to the stock market. In How to Invest in Real Estate and Pay Little or No Taxes, an expert acquaints investors with exemptions, exchange rules, and other tax shelters you can use to increase your ROIs by as much as 40 percent annually. Hubert Bromma clearly explains how they work and shows you how to use them to:
- Never pay taxes again on real estate investments
- Exchange their way to tax freedom
- Pay for college through tax-free real estate deals
- Use tax-exclusion credits when they mean the most
- Protect real estate investments from creditors
- Retire early and wealthy through tax-free real estate investments
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Good guide
This one may not get you 40% but it does tell you a unique trick with the IRAs. you can flip real estate over and over again without paying immediate taxes. the downside? you can’t withdraw your earnings but for long term, it is awesome. the book talks about tax liens being used for IRAs, though I agree with that, do not use this book to learn about tax liens or tax sales, or you’re gonna get burned. read up on Investing Without Losing (ISBN 0978834607 NOT on amazn, other stores) or something similar.
2 Stars Other sources are better for 1031 information
Perhaps the author is much more gifted as a seminar speaker than he is as a writer. I think the book could use a re-write in which the repetitive information is eliminated, and the remaining material is cleaned up, possibly following the suggestions of Strunk and White as described in Elements of Style. The 1031 exchange information comprises 22 pages of the 244 page book, and I was particularly disappointed with this section. The author went into useless detail when describing the hypothetical examples; his character, Lisa, needed to paint and carpet her old building before putting in on the market -not relevant! In the next example, Roger’s exchange was given such cursory treatment that the author failed to calculate the new basis for the replacement property correctly, inserting an erroneous figure into table 6-2. If you want to put investment real estate into your IRA or 401K, then this book may have merit. However, a quick internet search of “1031 exchange” will yield many more useful explanations than this book provides.
5 Stars Useful Reference Book with Sound Strategies
This book will open your eyes to new ways of securing and increasing your assets tax-free. There are many details and step-by-step examples and different scenarios. If you are thinking of doing a 1031 like-kind exchange - this book will take you through the process and give you concise instructions on how do it and what mistakes to avoid. If you are interested in self-directed IRA’s - keep in mind that you can use your retirement plan to invest in real estate. The author walks you through using your 401(K), your IRA, your HSA, and other vehicles to increase your portfolio by buying assets, including real estate.
If you want to own rental property, there is a way to have your self-directed IRA own it in its portfolio. If your IRA doesn’t have enough money to purchase the entire property, you can borrow cash outside the IRA to purchase the property. The book shows how to draw up a Buy Letter under those circumstances. If you will be receiving rents from the property, you can hire an outside property manager, rather than having your IRA plan administrator do the work. But there are strict conditions and this book outlines them.
If you invest in real estate at all, or are thinking about it, this book is a definite must-read and could potentially save you thousands of dollars!
5 Stars Easy read !
This book has great information and is easy to understand!
I have attended workshops by this author and this was exactly what I hoped for!
The Solomon Portfolio How to Invest Like a King
May 5, 2009 by Investing Today · Leave a Comment
The Solomon Portfolio How to Invest Like a King
The purpose of this book is simple: to make you richer than you are presently –through sensible, understandable financial concepts and through a stronger relationship with God. Using the strength of wisdom displayed by the richest and wisest man known throughout history — King Solomon, the author puts that knowledge and wisdom to work in approaching modern day investing. The book is practical and very easy to understand. What was revealed to Solomon can be applied to your own investments. Since no software will ever be able to accurately tell anyone what specific investment will be guaranteed to work; the same goes for investment advisers. The key to proper investing is to properly diversify and to prudently monitor one’s investments. By setting up a portfolio that confirms Solomon’s advise and uses scientific research and hard fact, the seven specific asset types that produce amazing results are called ‘The Solomon Portfolio.’ The seven are large-cap US stocks, small-cap US stocks, Non-US stocks, commodities and natural resources, real estate investment trusts, intermediate bonds, and cash.
The Guru Investor How to Beat the Market Using Historys Best Investment Strategies
May 5, 2009 by Investing Today · Leave a Comment
The Guru Investor How to Beat the Market Using Historys Best Investment Strategies
Today’s investor is faced with a myriad of investment options and strategies. Whether you are seeking someone to manage your money or are a self-directed investor deciding to tackle the market on your own, the options can be overwhelming.
In an easy-to-read and simple format, this book will dissect the strategies of some of Wall Street’s most successful investment gurus and teach readers how to weed through the all of the choices to find a strategy that works for them. The model portfolio system that author John Reese developed turns each strategy into an actionable system, addressing many of the common mistakes that doom individual investors to market underperformance. This book will focus on the principles behind the author’s multi-guru approach, showing how investors can combine the proven strategies of these legendary “gurus” into a disciplined investing system that has significantly outperformed the market.
Gurus covered in the book are: Benjamin Graham; John Neff; David Dreman; Warren Buffett; Peter Lynch; Ken Fisher; Martin Zweig; James O’Shaughnessy; Joel Greenblatt; and Joseph Piotroski.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars One stop shop for stock investing strategy and creating investing philosphy by learning from the investing legends
John Reese’s book “The Guru Investor - How to beat the market using history’s best investment strategies” fills the gap in investing books on how a person who doesn’t have a stock investing background (and struggles for some time with it) create a strategy to beat the market (and have a chance to beat the market) by learning from those who have beat the market consistently in the past. The book covers important most of the basic financial metrics and also covers value, growth and quants strategy. This book is basic enough and easy to understand. This book can be a one stop shop for investing books if you already know the basic of stock investing, but if you don’t know much about stock market or how stock investing works, then this is not the book that you want to read first.
The 6 principles of “Guru Investing” (what I personally called investing philosophy):
1. Combining strategies to minimize risk and maximize returns
2. Stick to the numbers or the market will stick it to you
3. Stay disciplined over the long haul
4. Diversify, but you can’t beat the market by owning it
5. Size and style - focused systems only limit investment possibilities
6. You don’t have to hold stocks for the long term to be a long term investor
Pros:
1. practical and succinct
2. covers most of the investing legends strategies and their “story” (Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Peter Lynch, David Dreman, Ken Fisher etc)
3. Covers many important financial ratios
4. Covers in depth the topic of “Determining when to sell”
5. Relate to the audience well (as someone who is trying to learn about investing from the investing greats)
6. Includes interesting facts in the fact box (or key learning) for each chapter or for each important topic.
7. Covers the performance of “Guru” based stock model portfolio and yearly track record comparison
Cons:
1. Marketing (cross selling) their other investment service (validea dot com and Validea investing system)
2. Supporting a subjective topic of the drawback of market timing/short term trading (that “one have to be right at least 74% of the time to make money with market timing approach”)
3. Should include more learning/strategies from Philip Fisher
In conclusion, “The Guru Investor - How to beat the market using history’s best investment strategies”, is a very good resource to help us understand many of the proven stock investing strategies (as applied by several of the investing legend). This book is a nice hybrid of “the intelligent investor” type book (theory concentrated) and “One up on Wall Street” (practical and experience) type book.
Happy Investing,
Sidarta Tanu
5 Stars Learn how to invest from the Gurus
This is simply one of the best investment books on the market. Who better to learn from than the greatest investors in history? What better strategies can you use than the ones used by Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Ken Fisher, Martin Zwieg or Peter Lynch? What this book does is review the lives and investing performance of the top ten investors who ever lived. Then the book presents how to invest like them using the same metrics and valuations that the gurus used based on their own books or from writings from people who have studied the gurus. The author has used model portfolios based on the techniques in the book to show that these approaches continued to work from 2003 to 2008 with most of them doubling and tripling the performance of the S&P 500 over that time.
The book will give you the knowledge you need to pick stocks using stock screeners based on price to sales ratios, price to earnings ratios, book value, liquidity, earnings growth, and many other metrics you will learn from the gurus. There is also a free companion web site that gives three stocks for each guru that currently meet their guidelines. The book recommends sticking with a strategy for the long run to really get results. It also explains the need to balance your portfolio at regular intervals, and sell stocks when the fundamentals have changed or they get involved in an accounting or other scandal. Excellent book for getting started in investing or for improving your investing performance.
2 Stars Okay
The author uses a proprietary model to invest in stocks, and I have been on his mailing list for a number of years, as I used to pay for his newsletter. However, I have noticed that in some VERY good years, the author has not done so well. At least he publishes a track record and is honest about it. Most newsletter authors will tout their fantastic returns of one particular year. Even if that might be true, they conveniently forget to mention all the bad years they have had.
It took Hulbert’s guide to sort out a lot of this misinformation. However, with all the newsletters and now website, it would be impossible for one person to sort it all out.
It would be best to find someone to give you financial advice who is a CFA–meaning a certified financial analyst–for this test a person needs five years of experience and has to pass 3 levels of this test. It is not an easy test and few brokers, personal financial planners, financial columnists, or newsletter writers have this credential. Second best might be to find someone with a Master’s Degree in Finance. I would love to have this credential myself and took all the courses as UCSD Extended Studies that apply to this test. However, as a multiple myeloma patient, since at one time the average patient only lives 3 years, and I have lived 5 1/2 years already, I did not know if I would ever live long enough to pass the 3 levels of this test.
I do have knowledge even some CFAs may not. And I have taken courses taught by doctors of finance where what was presented was actually wrong–I just could not make the professors understand this. I was once told there is no such thing, for example, as a non-diversified mutual fund (also known as a focused or select fund). Of course there are. I have done very well by investing in them actually.
At any rate, there are few people giving financial advice who know both economics, finance, and everything that is relevant very well. How many, for example, might give you the advice to invest in stock funds specializing in foreign stocks but try to find one who knows anything about specific foreign stocks. A different system of accounting is used–different than the GAAP rules we use in the USA–which will be adopted worldwide shortly.
Yet try to find a brokers, planner, newsletter writer or financial writer who knows anything about accounting and foreign stocks, exchange rates, non-systematic risk (risk outside of the risk of investing in stocks), or statistics.
It is very hard to find these kind of people unless you have millions of dollars in assets. John Validea tries hard to give the small investor the same advice he would give to these kind of clients, but as I said his track record over the last several years has been mixed.
But kudos to him for admitting his good and bad years.
How to Invest in Real Estate With Little or No Money Down
May 5, 2009 by Investing Today · Leave a Comment
How to Invest in Real Estate With Little or No Money Down
One of America’s most trusted real estate experts tells how to make a killing in real estate using other people’s money
This latest book from real estate guru Robert Irwin is a complete, step-by-step guide for newcomers to no-money-down real estate investment. It’s also a source of fresh insights and guidance for experienced investors looking for solutions to problems that can arise
with the no-money-down approach. Written for today’s robust market, How to Invest in Real Estate with Little or No Money Down tells readers how to:
-Get the seller to finance the purchase
-Research and analyze fixer-uppers and finance the purchase and the renovations
-Find and buy rental properties as solid long-term investments
-Locate good investments in high-priced markets and get sellers to accept lowball offers
-Cope with no-down investing negatives, including negative cash flow, high maintenance and repairs, and time demands
User Ratings and Reviews
3 Stars Easy to understand, kind of basic, good to start with
I found this book to be a good start, it didn’t really go into much detail on how to get into a rental property with no money down. It did some, but is more of a basic book for starters. I myself am a starter, but was wanting to know more in depth than this book offered. Over all I thought it was an ok book. This is a good book to start with, but don’t expect to become an expert from it.
5 Stars Great Guide
You’ll be surprised by this book, I was. It’s not about unrealistic tricks (like using a personal note as a down payment, which was in the last book I read, and which a seller told me I was ridiculous when I tried it). It shows how to use government backed financing (Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae) to get mortgages for more than 100 percent of your purchase costs. This book is solid - it tells exactly how to do it, every step. The best “nothing down” book I’ve ever read.
Tony
How to Invest in Condominiums The Low Risk Option for Long Term Cash Flow
May 5, 2009 by Investing Today · Leave a Comment
How to Invest in Condominiums The Low Risk Option for Long Term Cash Flow
A simple proven method for improving cash flow so you can live rent-free and retire early
How to Invest in Condominiums provides a simple, low-risk blueprint for building cash flow by buying and renting out condominiums. You can provide for your retirement or improve your monthly income by investing in income-producing real estate at a very low risk to the capital you invest. Unlike stocks and bonds, real estate is immune to inflation and a fluctuating stock market and also provides some shelter from taxes-and the return on investment typically exceeds that of the average Wall Street investor!
The author includes a plan for getting started and a detailed record of his investments that shows how he grew a considerable cash flow-with only a small commitment of time and effort. This straightforward, realistic guide will help you:
- Use this method to establish long-term cash flow
- Avoid owning a money-losing rental unit
- Use professional property management to save time and money
- Avoid “fixer-uppers” v Keep your long-run effort minimal
- Live rent-free and retire early!
How to Invest in Condominiums is a reliable and realistic way to supplement your income. There are no gimmicks and no strings attached and this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a long-term plan that will help you meet-and surpass-your long-term goals.
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars Outdated & advice very anecdotal
Author provides advice based on the seven condo properties he’s personally bought in the Seattle area in the mid-70’s to 80’s. As someone who lives in the same market I can tell you the ROI percentages and new purchase guidelines provided haven’t been applicable here in a long time. The book is useful if you want the author’s personal reasons for investing in condo’s vs. other investments. He sees them as low hassle/risk v. reward and gives his reasoning. Of course, the numbers to back it up are outdated too. An interesting read but if you’re looking for sophisticated investment advice or concrete steps you can use in today’s market you may want to look elsewhere.
5 Stars Great information
This is the best investment book that I have read thus far, which could mean that I haven’t read enough investment books. To me, the book was a breath of fresh air, having a lot of down-to-earth, common-sense stuff. After reading it, I truly agree with the author that condominiums are a very solid, if not the best, investment. I even have a specific game plan on how to go about getting my first condo and the long term process that can make me rich if I implement it correctly, and follow the path laid out by Virsnieks.
Other business books that I have read just tell you that you have to learn to “think like the rich.” These other books do not lay out a specific game plan to reach your goals. Virsnieks even gives you the details about each of his condos that he bought and gives you the exact amounts that he made on each one, and even gives figures on the ones he lost money on. He also does not tell you to be sure to buy his other books and attend his seminars so he can fill your head with more useless information and take more of your money. For this, I really respect Virsnieks. He has no hidden agenda as some other business/investment authors that I have read seem to have. He gives you a specific, easy-to-follow game plan with very attainable steps that I think just about anyone can follow.
There is one flaw that I have found with this book. Although the book was published in 2002, the author makes many references to the years 1986-1997. He never really discusses the performance of his properties beyond the year 1997, except for the fact that he added an appendix right before the book was published. Maybe this was because it took him a while to compile the info, and maybe it took a few years to get the book published after it was finished.
As the author explains, there is no get-rich-quick scheme here; it is a long process that will take a little bit of time and patience to really benefit from. But I think that’s how all business works. There is no easy way out. But, using this method, you can make a lot of money and you won’t have to do very much work, nor will you have to take any big risks.
2 Stars Outdated information
I bought this book along with the one by Gary Eldred.
Eldred’s had much more up to date info.
This book was full of stats from the mid to late 1990s even though it was written in 2002.
He never fully goes into the tax benefits of Real Estate especially 1031 exchanges etc.
He bought his condos at a high interest rate making his payments higher and thus affecting his formula on how to know if you are getting a good deal or not.
I can not reccomend this book.
5 Stars Why didn’t I read this 10 years ago?
This book is so easy to read and understand. After watching my stocks loose all of their gains from the last 10 years almost over night, I determined to use this investment formula for my future. The plan is straight foreword and can be applied any where you live. I have already purchased my first rental and it is paying for itself.
5 Stars A real eye-opener for a new investor!
An absolute MUST-READ for renters, owners and investors! Virsnieks’ book was a real eye-opener for me as a beginner, taking the scariness out of investing in real esate. He describes his very safe, easy, painless and patient step-by-step method he developed personally for buying one condominium at a time to slowly build up a real estate portfolio. His conversational tone makes his book fun to read. Buy it and read it, it will change your whole outlook on investing!
