The Real Estate Game: The Intelligent Guide To Decisionmaking And Investment

Description

The Real Estate Game is a comprehensive guide to successful real estate investment from one of the masters in the field. Drawing upon four decades of experience developing, owning, and managing properties and on almost thirty years of teaching at the Harvard Business School, William J. Poorvu offers an insider's perspective on how to make smart decisions about real estate. The real estate “game” is played by people, and it’s the stories of real people that make Poorvu’s introduction to the industry colorful and interesting. You will meet players ranging from real estate moguls to small-scale developers to individual investors in exotic investment instruments. Their stories evolve throughout the book and illustrate how these people—with all their complicated needs, talents, and motives—fit into the larger process and context. In clear and nontechnical language, Poorvu explains how variables—players, properties, capital markets, and the external environment—come together to influence the shape and outcome of a real estate deal. He explains the time frame for different kinds of real estate investments and walks the reader through the key “periods of play” in the real estate game: concept, commitment, development, operation, reward, and reinvestment. The Real Estate Game introduces a simple but powerful “back-of-the-envelope” technique for analyzing the financial implications of a potential deal. Using this tool and others, Poorvu shows readers how to use direct investments, syndicates, and REITs to get into the real estate game across a broad range of property types: residential, office, hotel, industrial, and retail. Offering unique insight into the ways that developers and investors can create value, The Real Estate Game is both a perfect introduction for the novice and an invaluable overview for the experienced professional. Review: A must read - Best book by a mile for an introduction to real estate. Based on the American system, however it is applicable to all countries and scenarios. A must read for any investor or individual with an interest in physical asset investment primarily real estate. Review: Best real estate book ever - I think that this is one of the best books I have read on real estate. Successful real estate investments are not just about finding the right property, doing the due diligence, and closing the transaction. It is also about understanding how the players in this game think and act and what their motivations are behind it. The authors propose that investors be value investors, just like Warren Buffett in the stock market investing. They need to be willing to buy at the right time when opportunities are being offered at a discount-to-replacement cost. There are many people involved in each transaction, and it is hard to understand how these people fit in the big picture. In this book, the authors show readers the function of buyers, sellers, attorneys, and appraisers. I highly recommend this book to people interested in real estate. - Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market