1. The Number – Lee EisenbergFormer Ad exec and writer for magazines, Eisenberg takes a “regular guy” look at how much you need to retire and how to figure it out. Through story telling about lifestyle, needs and wants, Eisenberg helps the reader gain a calm about what the dollar amount is needed to retire. What is “enough”? This book doesn’t have a lot of complicated formulas or graphs, but a plain English approach to explaining how to figure out the amount needed. The best lesson is about capitalization and how long that money will last. Nice read.
2. Cash Flow Quadrant-Robert KiyosakiKiyokasi explains and gives charts to help the reader understand that depending on what walk of life you are in, you either will have an easy time or hard time becoming financially independent. This will give anyone a good perspective on where they fit in the economy and whether they are on the slow boat or fast track to independence. Find out for yourself whether you are in the right part of the quadrant.
3. Real Book on Real Estate – Robert KiyosakiLove this book because it’s all about the stories of people who succeeded and how.
4. Tax Free Wealth – Tom Wheelwright, CPAPart of the Rich Dad series, this book is eye-opening to people who complain about taxes, or don’t know the tax advantages given to real estate assets. It’s written in layman’s terms, and will give you a starting point to understanding how to structure your investments (with real life stories of successes and failures) to protect yourself and save on income taxes.
5. The Complete Guide to Buying & Selling Apartment Buildings – Steve BergesA very analytical book that helps you crunch numbers, but also helps you to leverage or optimize your multi-family building’s cash flow. You can learn to do this before you buy your first apartment building.
6. What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know about Cash Flow – Frank GallinelliA book full of step- by-step analysis on terms every investor should know. This math will help decide whether to buy, when to sell, and how to show the seller the fair price based on numbers. The terms used to measure returns (like cap rate, GRM, internal rate of return) are all explained and demonstrated. For those who love technical stuff it’s a great read, for those who don’t it’s a must read. Mr Gallinelli has a humorous style of writing to boot. Enjoy!