Date: June 11th, 2025
Title: The Real Book of Real Estate
Author: Various essayists combined and forwarded by Robert Kiyosaki
Category: Finance
What it is about: A survey book covering various topics in real estate investing and developments
Why I chose to read this book: As an architect who has partially made the transition towards being a real estate developer, I wanted to read a book that would cover various topics to understand the gaps in my knowledge.
What I learned: The Real Book of Real Estate is a slightly uneven survey of the real estate investment and development landscape compiled by Robert Kiyosaki and featuring essays from many of his collaborators. The writers are all knowledgable, but the information can be spotty. This is not a surprise. Expertise in real estate is hard earned. I have been working as a developer for the better part of a decade and while my knowledge base has grown significantly, I realize how much I still don’t know when I talked to more experienced developers. Sharing of information comes with close relationships and respect, and that takes time. What the book does provide are several insightful essays that form a good jumping off point for deeper inquiry. In particular, I found the sections on financing, and tax lien investment well worth reading. Another thing that provided some confidence, was how much I already knew about many of these topics. I would say that 70% of the subject matter in this book I was familiar with, and I knew something about the other 30%. That is a huge step up from what I could have said 5 years ago.
What I will take and use in the future: My goal has long been to start my own small development practice. I have dozens of hotel, hospitality, and residential projects under my belt at this point, but they are largely in the multi-million dollar range (and several over a billion). What this book taught me was that there are certain quick investment strategies I could employ to develop ‘seed’ money to do smaller scale developments (under 10 million dollars) within a few years. My ultimate goal is to develop affordable housing, and these strategies would dovetail nicely with those employed by developers of affordabl housing. It would also allow me to develop smaller hotel and resort projects that I feel could definitely find hotel brands to be interested in partnering on. I will use this book to start deeper dives into investment strategies and refine those during the time I am incarcerated.
