Start Small, Profit Big in Real Estate: Fixer Jay's 2-Year Plan for Building Wealth - Starting from Scratch!

I would have like to know before I purchase the book: A little about the author's Real Estate experience back ground. A preview or summary of the book.

The author gave "how" examples and easy to understand explainations to help you build wealth.

As one of a handful of real estate gurus recommended by John T Reed, Decima's books are very readable and accurate (with minor exceptions). What is refreshing is that he promotes the classic William Nickerson model...rather than the 'nothing down' nonsense (RichDad/Allen/etc.) or the speculation game (and interest only ARMs). Instead, buy a dumpy house (w/positive cashflow), put in the sweat equity, rent it out, repeat. It's hard work (and definately not sexy)...but the pay just can not be beat. Moreover, buying distressed homes under market protects your investment in the event of an economic downturn (if you bought at 30% discount and median home sales dip 10% - you can still sell at a profit)...and results in lower taxes (at least, in CA).

There are a lot of books on how to make money in real estate. Most of them say that you want to stay away from fixer uppers. They say that the time you spend fixing is time that you could better spend buying or selling. Jay DeCima takes another view. He says that he buys Ugly Ducklings and then fixes them up to make them desirable rentals. He says that most of the fixing up is low skilled labor that he can do himself cheaper than hiring it done. This would include things like clean up and painting. Other more specialized things like installing a new toilet may be something you don't know how to do. So hire a plumber, but watch what he does so you'll at least know how later. He does say, however, that he knows a lot of such investors who contract out the work. So called sweat equity is certainly a good way to get started. When I was looking for my present house, I looked at a rental. Comparing I found that about five years of rent would be equal to the purchase price of a house.

Jay writing style makes it very easy to follow the material and not get bored. I felt there is a lot of useful information in the book. I would caution the reader that when I compared this book with some of his others, it seemed like each book had a lot of the same material. I would recommend this one, but would not recommend buying all of his books.