Customer comments on this Youngstown Ohio Book
 Eliminates the Guesswork
This book provides an essential foundation for real estate analysis and investing. It is true that this book may challenge those who aren't familiar with reading financial statements. But, don't let that disourage you. Be patient and do your best to understand how financials work. Understanding financial statements is a vital skill for any business owner - and a real estate investor is a business owner.
Many real estate books focus on motivation and "creative" financing techniques. There is a place for that kind of book but this book does not contain that kind of material.
You'll learn that you are not buying a house or building. You are buying an income stream. Understanding the four sources of that income stream and how the stream flows is essential to gaining the most from your investments. Removing the emotion from an investment decision and understanding the numbers will ultimately lead to clearer picture and better real estate deals.
I highly recommend this book as a foundation to your real estate education.
 NOT for the beginner
I selected this book based on the awesome reviews. It sounded like everything I needed to know about real estate investing, in a simplistic format. Within a few chapters, I found the book to be very condescending (i.e.; Basically....if you're too stupid to understand this calculation, real estate investing is not for you).
Since I am a beginner and not a math major, I did not expect to whizz right through all of the calculations. But I also did not expect a negative tone with no support that made me not want to read it further. So, I bought REAL ESTATE INVESTING FOR DUMMIES. I found it significantly more helpful. It does point out warnings and says that if you're not comfortable with possible negative cash flow, then maybe real estate investing is not right for you at this time. It also weighed the stability of real estate investing in comparison to stocks. I found the Dummies book much better suited to the beginner while detailing pros and cons, instead of being a pain to read.
Great technical read- good "holistic" view of RE measures
Cuts through the fluff; gives you the "holistic" view of a real estate investment by illustrating every measure. The reality is there's no single "magic bullet" way to measure whether a property is a good deal or not; this book makes this point while teaching all the various measures, at all phases of ownership (including selling or "exit strategy", which most novice investors don't usually consider when they're just getting started).
I used it to help me measure whether some multifamily properties I am purchasing are good investments.
I also used the online reference formulas... they do a good job of supplementing the material.
I would suggest reading a few other books on general RE investing in addition to this to get a well rounded education on the matter.
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