Resources on Buying Rental Properties

Question

My wife and I are starting to consider investing in rental properties and becoming landlords.

I'm basically looking for resources (books, websites, any other sources) that can help me understand the basic economics of things like:

• How to choose properties
• Financing
• Accounting/Taxes
• Incorporating vs. buying with personal funds

Again, we are really just starting to explore this option, and not nearly convinced that we are going to pursue it. I just want to do some reading and research to gain as full an understanding as possible.

Answer 1

In no particular order - to help you on deciding whether to invest or not:

Building Wealth One House at a Time

Buy & Rent Foreclosures: 3 Million Net Worth, 22,000 Net Per Month, In 7 Years...You can too!

Landlording on Auto-Pilot: A Simple, No-Brainer System for Higher Profits and Fewer Headaches

and for when/if you actually decide to start:

Investing in Real Estate

I've read all the books above and they all have a little bit of information here and there to take out - although they have some redudency it is the good type you need to learn/know anyway.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

The book HOLD: How to Find, Buy, and Rent Houses for Wealth by Chader et al. was one of the best I've read on the subject. It has all of the basics, explanations, examples, and gives you real-life assumptions for your inputs when you do your analysis. It does contain some less-relevant information now that was more realistic before 2007, but it's a worthwhile read (or listen).

They have some good starter worksheets, as well, on their website to help you do your analysis, which I found useful despite already having my own.

Answer 3

I would also suggest finding the training resource within your state for real estate agent license exam prep...

When I was getting started, I took the "101" level course and it was worth the few hundred bucks for the overview I gleaned.