Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book is well written and a quick read with a fair amount of repetitiveness. The author details his experience with rental properties primarily in an era of extreme appreciation of which he bases most of his theory on. I don't believe it is realistic to expect properties to increase at the rapid rate that he suggests which is the premise behind one of the plans he outlines which is to quickly refinance and purchase properties. Keep in mind that he is located in southern Florida which was one of the fastest appreciated areas of the country during the heyday of the recent real estate boom and it was during that time that he continuously refers to. It is my opinion that the author should temper some of his claims with the fact that not all investors will be able to execute his rapid fire acquisition strategies in an environment that is dissimilar to the one he had which was very unique and uncommon. What I'm trying to say is that his assumptions are absolutely "best case" scenarios which are unlikely to be duplicated by the majority of investors. The one other area of the book that I had a problem with was in the area of tenants. He claimed that he doesn't run background, credit, etc. checks on prospective tenants and prefers to "go with his gut" on whether he feels the tenant is suitable to occupy his property. He goes on to say that if you invest in higher quality properties you will attract higher quality tenants. That is probably true but I don't think it eliminates the need to thoroughly screen prospective tenants. I'm not sure what it's like in south Florida but I can tell you that here in Washington state there is a big problem with methamphetamine labs in rental properties. The financial liability for the property owners is huge and not covered by insurance. When these meth labs operate out of rental property,(half of all labs found do) owners pay a high price that includes: civil penalties, property damage, decline in property values, dangerous and threatening tenants, resentful and angry neighbors, and loss of valued tenants. This is nationwide problem that every potential rental property owner should be aware of. In my opinion, to not perform absolute due diligence in the screening of tenants is unnecessarily exposing yourself to a disaster with serious financial implications. Of course the potential threat doesn't disappear just because the tenant passed the screening phase. There are other monitoring measures that property owners need to follow after the tenants move in to protect the property. My advice would be to spend the money and do the checks. Overall, I did enjoy this book and would recommend it with the suggestion to readers that they play devil's advocate to arrive at a more balanced perspective of this particular type of real estate investment investing.