RealShelf

Wendy Patton’s book on the low- and no-money down techniques Investing in Real Estate With Lease Options and “Subject-To” Deals : Powerful Strategies for Getting More When You Sell, and Paying Less When You Buy has a mouthful of a title and it actually delivers on that title. It is simply one of the best books on the market for realistically understanding how a beginning investor with reasonable capital can make a go of real estate investing. Lease options are also known as “rent to own”. “Subject-to” deals are transactions where the buyer accepts the property “subject-to” the existing mortgage - the existing mortgage is left in place and still has to be paid. Patton details how that should happen.

The first thing this book has going for it is the source of her experience. Patton is herself both a real estate investor and a real estate broker. As an investor she has past and current experience, a major advantage over “gurus” who are still touting assumable VA and FHA loans over twenty years after the last such loan was made. As a licensed broker she is compelled to handle her own business at a higher standard, steering clear of anything that might even be borderline questionable and her personal ethics rise even higher than the law alone may call for. That combination means that unlike many gurus she doesn’t tout questionable tactics like using the renters deposits as your down payment on a multifamily property. Instead, on the buying side, she focuses on aggressively negotiated lease-option and “subject-to” deals that solve a problem for the seller and offer profit for you, the buyer.

The second thing this book has going for it is that it doesn’t stop with great advice on buying. She includes selling the properties, either outright or also with lease-options and “subject-to” sales, to actually turn a profit. It’s amazing how often even the decent infomercial gurus simply leave their students with the impression that all that matters is buying the property. They’ve even twisted the reasonable concept of not overanalyzing, into the idea that anything more than the most cursory due diligence is “paralysis of analysis.” Not Patton. She provides the tools, in the form of checklists, to analyze everything from the initial purchase to tenant applications when the investor resells property on a lease-option.

Finally, Patton as a real estate broker herself, has honest, down to earth advice on working with real estate agents to find deals. Too many infomercial masters neglect to tell their apprentices that the typical agent works on a commission only basis and often advise them to use agents time in time and labor intensive searches for properties that are often totally inappropriate for any of their methods. As a result they waste agents time with their pipe dream seminar methods and every real estate agent develops an eye rolling “oh brother, another one” response to anyone calling and representing himself as a “real estate investor.” Fortunately Patton’s methods emphasize working with the way agents are compensated to make those who follow her methods stand out as the investors agents want to do business with and the people to call when an appropriate deal comes along.

Of the books I’ve read or even skimmed on the subject of low money down investing, this is the one to buy.

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