Product Description

Strategies for creating real estate wealth by star ting small--and always making the right moves

Nationally known real estate expert John Schaub learned his craft in the best way possible--on the job, and through every kind of market. Over three decades, he learned to bank consistent profits as he built an impressive real estate mini-empire. Building Wealth One House at a Time reveals how virtually anyone can accumulate one million dollars worth of houses debtfree and earn a steady cash flow for life.

Unique in that it focuses on buying houses in good-quality neighborhoods, Schaub's nine-step program includes:

• Renting to long-term tenants, with financial incentives to pay on time
• Avoiding the temptation of bigger deals, which invariably include bigger problems
• A 10-year plan to pay off debt and own houses free and clear

(20050129)

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #247110 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
"On my scale of one to 10, it rates an off-the-chart 12." -Robert J. Bruss, Nationally Syndicated Real Estate Columnist -- REAL ESTATE BOOK REVIEW REAL ESTATE BOOK REVIEW Real Estate Book Review, February 9, 2005

"On my scale of one to 10, it rates an off-the-chart 12." -- -Bob Bruss, Nationally Syndicated Real Estate Columnist

Review
The New York Post

IF you’re a home buyer, contracts can be one of the most difficult things understand. One source to understand.

One source of great tips is actually an investment book, John Schaub’s "Building Wealth One House at a Time," coming out this month from McGraw-Hill.

Here are five of our favorite tips from the book:

1. Offer to close quickly.
You can cut your down payment this way, Schuab notes. While this won’t work on a New York City co-op, it might on a house. "The only reason to make a large down payment is to convince the seller that you are a serious buyer," Schaub writes. "You can get the seller’s attention with less money by making an offer that closes in a week."

2. Take whatever time you need to read the contract.
If you’ve spent dozens of hours finding a good deal, why blow it by skipping a potentially important clause in the contract?

3. If an inspection reveals problems, the buyer can make repairs; but it will be faster for the seller to give the buyer a financial credit toward those repairs.

4. Keep the contract the sellers filled out.
If you have a choice of copies, you want the one they’ve written on. Schaub notes "it would be hard for them to claim that they did not understand the contract if they actually filled it out."

5. Never go to court to enforce a contract.
If the sellers back out, you can stick it to them, but you shouldn’t, Schaub says. "It is easier and more profitable," he writes "to find another good deal." (Associated Press )

From the Back Cover

“John Schaub is the only real estate guru I know who has survived and prospered for 30 years in this wild and wooly market.”-Mark Skousen, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Economics, Columbia University, and Editor, Forecast and Strategies

The key in owning investment real estate is buying good houses in good neighborhoods. By learning to buy at wholesale prices, fund your down payment, and attract tenants that will pay off your loans and improve your property value, you can immediately begin to increase your wealth. In Building Wealth One House at a Time, real estate expert John Schaub shows you how to

• Accumulate a million dollars in free and clear high quality houses that will provide cash flow for life
• Be Your own boss, set your own hours, and have both financial and personal freedom
• Buy the right houses on the right terms, and then rent them to good tenants who will pay off your debt

Building Wealth One House at a Time will have you ready to buy the right house, resell in a hurry for guaranteed profits, and create financial independence on your own terms.

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Customer Reviews

Good Advice
This is a fascinating book, with plenty of good advice for investing in rental properties and learning to live off the income produced by your investments. Schaub talks about finding deals, negotiating for better terms, using agents, managing your properties, and protecting your key assets. The paragraphs below briefly discuss three of his key points.

Schaub's chapter on learning how to work yourself out of your day job hit home with me. Isn't this a goal we all share? Schaub's plan is easy to understand, but not necessarily easy to follow. In my action plans, I first wanted to be able to pay my electric bill with income that had spun off my investments. After reaching that goal, I wanted to pay my phone bill, car insurance, etc. I kept working to build investment income sufficient to pay my bills. Eventually, I reached a point where my investment income has almost equaled my work income. I'm using the bulk of my work income to make investments. Schaub suggests using your investment income to replace your need to work. I suggest you keep working, and use you work income to make bigger investments.

Schaub's entire thesis rests on the concept of buying quality properties that you manage and control, and striving to pay them off within a ten-year period. When you approach retirement, theoretically you will have the income of these properties flowing into your bank account. This is a great idea, and certainly doable; however, maintenance, tax, and insurance expenses will never go away. So don't forget that maintenance alone may eat up to 40% of your gross income. Insurance and taxes will eat another 10-20%.

Schaub talks about owning property out of town, and this is important info for all investors. Your main concern is control. I learned my lesson the hard way here. I owned a home free and clear in a different state. However, my property manager seen to it that every month I had a significant maintenance costs, such as $325 for removal of used stove. $459 for removal of tree roots from pipes under house. Month after month I put up with these outrageous costs, that I would have handled for pennies if the home was within a hour's drive of my home.

Schaub suggests you Focus on making small deals that you can understand and control. For example, a small investor can earn sufficient returns from several single-family homes in good neighborhoods, without having to negotiate for malls and apartment complexes, or get over your head in partnerships and complex land development deals.

You may also want to read "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill and "The 17 Principles of Creating Wealth" by Phillip Collinsworth.

Covers the basic rules.
John Schaub has been a house investor, author, and speaker for over thirty years. He presents a senario of buying a house, renting it out for enough to cover its cost and maintenance, paying it off over a ten year or so period, building an investment portfolio of properties that will then provide for a good retirement income.

As with a lot of things, the devil is in the details. And most of the book covers things like finding the right house, negeotiating the price, a quick look at accounting, borrowing and everything else connected with the real estate marketplace.

The book is dead on. There are an awful lot of people who have made a lot of money this way. There are two or three he doesn't mention. One is buying houses at auction when they have been foreclosed, something you should investigate in your community, particularily if you live in a one commodity area that is subject to boom and bust. Another point is that most of the people I know who have build themselves this kind of business do a lot of their own maintenance. You can pay for things like cleaning and painting, but it's expensive.

Investing in rental houses is a business. Like any business it's subject to working hard, making the right decisions, and having just a bit of luck. If the earthquake finds your house ....

Definitely a keeper
I like this book. The author offers advice and strategies that I believe I can make work for me in the real world. There was nothing that I read in the book that I would feel strange or wrong about doing. In fact, I'm looking into making an offer using his methods.

The only conflict for me was that John recommends investing in your own area. He doesn't seem fond of investing out of town. I live in Southern California, and unless you are make large cash down payments, it's nearly impossible to be cash flow positive for a very long time. I'm going to adapt the information in the book and continue to invest out of town.

I'm definitely adding this to my investment book library. It's a keeper.