Product Description

Completely updated and one of the most direct and practical approaches to presenting the factors that cause real estate value to change, McKenzie and Betts have updated the fifth edition while adding graphics and coverage of contemporary topics. This text works well for individuals with little or no background in formal economics, providing current information needed for a successful course in real estate economics for real estate agents, appraisers, and investors.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61693 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

From the Publisher
Presented in a direct, practical manner, this text focuses on the factors that cause real estate values to change. It is ideal for students with no formal math or economics background. Applications to the real estate market are non-quantitative.

From the Back Cover
Presented in a direct, practical manner, it focuses o the factors that cause real estate values to change. It is ideal for readers with no formal math or economics background. Applications to the real estate marekt are non-quantitative.

About the Author
Dennis J. McKenzie, MBA, MA Economics, is a real estate editor for Thomson South-Western's California Real Estate Series and an instructor in Real Estate and Economics, College of the Redwoods. He was formerly senior faculty in real estate, University of Southern California, College of Continuing Education. McKenzie is currently a REALTOR®, a GRI, and a faculty member of the REALTORS® Institute. McKenzie has served as an educational consultant for the California Department of Real Estate and is a past recipient of the Teacher of the Year award granted by the California Real Estate Educators Association.

Richard M. Betts is a California Certified Real Estate Appraiser and consultant in Berkley, California where he earned both his Bachelors and Masters degree at the University of California. Betts has extensive experience as a fee appraiser, including expert-witness appraisal before various superior courts and assessment appeal boards. Betts holds the professional designations MAI, SRA and ASA (Real Estate) and is a member of the Appraisal Institute and the American Society of Appraisers.

Customer Reviews

Get the book used or better yet, drop the class.
I posted my initial review of this book before finishing it
and my first review was rather negative. I think it is worth
following up, so I have changed my review after finishing the
class. My review has gotten a little worse...

Conclusions :

This book is nearly devoid of subject matter provided you
understand basic supply and demand. When houses are scarse
they cost more, when there are vacancies, they cost less.

The book has a companion study guide, and teachers edition
with test, so your teacher doesn't have to do any work. That
is not so unusual, but read on...

The study guide only matches the book for the first 6 chapters
and then runs amok. Nearly half of the study guide questions
are subjective and misleading. The content of the textbook
is often contradicted by the tests and the study guide.

The teachers editon has a significant number of the test
questions wrong. If your teacher chose this sorry text, you
can almost bet they will mark you wrong on the tests and you
will have little or no opportunity for rebuttal because your
teacher is fundamentally lazy or they would have picked the
better text by Hubert et al. My teacher did not return our
tests at all, and when we reviewed the answers he refused to
consider valid arguments that there might have been a mistake
except in one case where the whole class was shouting at him.

This text was written in the early 1990s. Some parts have been
updated, some have not. The text is rarely wrong or misleading,
but it is geared at junior high level. The study guide and the
teachers materials seem to have been prepared by someone other than
the text author, they are often dead wrong, contradictory, or subjective so you should prepare to be frustrated by the
experience of taking a class based on this textbook.

I should add that I am getting a good grade in the class, I
am mostly angry that I have spent so much time and have learned
absolutely nothing and my teacher and the author of this text
are profiting at my and my classmates expense. If I could do
this over again I would drive to a farther away school in order
to find somebody who wanted to teach.

Good overview of how real estate markets work that's easy to read
I saw the one other review and thought I should comment. I took a Real Estate Economics course at my local community college a couple years ago and this was the textbook. My instructor did not suck and had his own tests and assignments, so I cannot comment on the tests or teachers edition. I do not dispute the apparent inaccuracies. They are discouraging, and if I chose not to ignore them, I might give the book 3 stars. But I will ignore these weaknesses and review this as a book for any reader or investor who might want to read it independently.

Now, I'm an investor first and a real estate investor second. And I was actually an economics major in college. So I agree that this book was far from challenging material. The author takes the entire first chapter to explain what to expect and not to expect from the book. It's not an economics book. The book is actually a hodge-podge of introductions to several topics that all add up to a decent picture of how and why the real estate markets work the way they do: real estate fundamentals, taxation, development, government policies, and investments in general.

In fact, I've used the beginning of chapter 16 "Basic Investment Principles" p379-383 when trying to teach people about investing in general. It's amazing how few "everyday people" understand the basic ideas of taxability, control, liquidity, risk, and return. And understanding the different kinds of risks: inflation risk, interest rate risk, market risk, policy change risk, etc.

Anyway, some might interpret it as "off topic", but as long as you know that it's a hodge-podge book going in, I think it's a recommended read for any real estate investor. And the other review said it was written at a junior high level. That may be about right. But I didn't mind it. It was very easy to read.

Now, it is a textbook and it's just over 450 pages. Mass-market real estate books pepper you with anecdotes and opinions and examples. There isn't much of that. It's pretty dry. But if you are interested in the topic, it's accessible and worth the time.

A window to Real Estate world
This book is just perfect as introduction to real estate business, urban economic and their relation with urban (land) planning. It is really useful for me, who deal with local economic development planning.

The book is divided into four parts: (1) Basic economic background for real estate analysis; (2) Understanding real estate markets; (3) Major influences on real estate development; (4) Real estate investment (the economic of parcels). With this systematic and step-by-step explanation, the reader is easily to follow and understand the content, even for a student without economic, planning or mathematic background.

By reading this book I understand the whole system of real estate economy, especially roles of factors of: economic and monetary policy, inflation, tax, and interest rate; business cycles, markets; location (regional, local or site) and urban planning; development processes; related business and institutions. Understanding dynamic relationship among those factors is very helpful to understand the basic of current economic and financial situation, post sub-prime mortgage tragedy that create `tsunami' of global financial system. On government intervention, reader can compare John M. Keynes versus Milton Friedman point of view especially in dealing with unemployment, inflation and recession, even though in a short introductory version.

Beside this book I also read Jack Harvey's "Urban Land Economics: The Economics of Real Property" (MacMillan Education).

[Risfan Munir, Local Economic Development Planner in Jakarta, Indonesia]