Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis
by Paul Muolo
from Wiley
In the summer of 2007, the subprime empire that Wall Street had built all came crashing down. On average, fifty lenders a month were going bust-and the people responsible for the crisis included not just unregulated loan brokers andcon artists, but also investment bankers and home loan institutions traditionally perceived as completely trustworthy.
Chain of Blame chronicles this incredible disaster, with a specific focus on the players who participated in such a fundamentally flawed fiasco. Authors Paul Muolo and Mathew Padilla, well-regarded journalists for National Mortgage News and the Orange County Register respectively, reveal the truth behind how this crisis occurred, what individuals and institutions-from lenders and brokers to some of the biggest investment banks in the world-were doing during this critical time, and who is ultimately responsible for what happened.
Rich Dad's Advisors®: The ABC's of Real Estate Investing: The Secrets of Finding Hidden Profits Most Investors Miss (Rich Dad's Advisors)
by Ken McElroy
from Business Plus
Home Buying For Dummies, 3rd edition
by Eric Tyson
from Wiley
This may be the best comprehensive guide for home buyers. Home Buying for Dummies is coauthored by Eric Tyson, author of several other books in the For Dummies series, and Ray Brown, a long-time real estate professional. Like other books in the series, this one is an easy and even entertaining read. But it does not gloss over details in pursuit of simplicity. Home Buying for Dummies covers all the bases, providing clear explanations and reasonable judgments on how to select a mortgage, hire a real estate agent, find the right house, and negotiate a good deal. The book goes further than most in providing helpful, specific information. For example, in discussing ways to save money for a future down payment, Home Buying for Dummies even includes the phone numbers for various mutual funds appropriate to different investment time frames. --Barry Mitzman
Though fun and exciting, buying a home can also be complicated and confusing—and most people learn the hard way that a wrong move can cost dearly. In order to find the perfect home at the best price, you must have skill, foresight, and a little guidance from experienced professionals.
Home Buying for Dummies, Third Edition provides just that! Packed with invaluable advice in an objective, down-to-earth style that will have you sitting in your dream home in no time, this friendly guide contains everything you need to know to play the home buying game. It has the tools you need to:
- Improve your credit score and select a mortgage
- Choose a time and place to buy
- Determine the price you want to pay
- Assemble an all-star real estate team
- Make use of the wonderful world of the Internet
- Negotiate your best deal
- Inspect and protect your home
- Handle and become responsible for the title
- Cope with buyer’s remorse
Featured in this guide are tips and tricks on things you should do after you seal the deal, as well as things you ought to know about real estate investing. Also included is advice on how to sell your house, as well as a sample real estate purchase contract and a good inspection report. Don’t get chewed up by the real estate market—Home Buying for Dummies, Third Edition will lead you to the home you want!
Financial Shock: A 360º Look at the Subprime Mortgage Implosion, and How to Avoid the Next Financial Crisis
by Mark Zandi
from FT Press
Complete Guide to Real Estate Tax Liens and Foreclosure Deeds: Learn in 7 Days-Investing Without Losing Series (Investing Without Losing)
by Don Sausa
from The Vision Press
The Complete Guide to Real Estate Tax Liens and Foreclosure Deeds introduces you to the best investment alternative of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Every month, smart investors are placing their money in fixed interest rates of 16 percent or more in government-sponsored tax liens. Plus, learn how to invest in foreclosure tax deeds. All of this in 7 days! From the publishers of Investing Without Losing, ISBN 0978834607.
Real Estate Investing for Dummies
by Eric Tyson
from Wiley Publishing, Inc.
"This is simply the best book on the topic.”
—Randall Bell, Author, Home Owner's Manual
"Tyson and Griswold have truly opened the world of real estate investing to all by tackling often complex issues in this easy to understand and use book. I can't think of a better way to get smart about building wealth through rental properties than to read their excellent Real Estate Investing For Dummies!"
—Vern Hoven, CPA
Non-prime time TV is cluttered with infomercials about how you can buy non-prime real estate for next to nothing and get rich quick. Common sense should tell you that’s an exaggeration. (If common sense doesn’t tell you, bankers will.) Nevertheless, it is possible to get rich gradually by investing in real estate. Long term, you can expect to realize an annual return of 8 to 10% a year.
Real Estate Investing for Dummies gives you the keys to successful real estate investment, whether it’s in single family homes and condos, apartments, vacation homes, commercial properties (office, industrial, and retail), raw land, or REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts). With guidance from authors Eric Tyson, MBA, a financial counselor, and Robert S. Griswold, a veteran real estate investor, you’ll discover how to:
- Find and buy the best properties at a fair price
- Capitalize on opportunities such as foreclosures, no money down deals, auctions, tax sales, and more
- Secure financing and good mortgage terms
- Value, evaluate, and negotiate everything to do with real estate
- Work with agents and other professionals
- Project income potential and cash flow
- Handle contracts, inspections, and closings
Whether you’re interested in a fixer supper for rental, premier office space you can lease, or a vacation home you can enjoy and rent, when you become a buyer, you also become a landlord. That means you can hear from tenants any time, night or day. It means you may not hear from them when the rent is due. Real Estate Investing for Dummies also helps you:
- Find and keep good tenants
- Negotiate lease agreements
- Insure and maintain your property
- Keep good records for tax and accounting purposes
Remember, with any deal, you have to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. So Real Estate Investing for Dummies gives you guidelines on when and how to sell and how to reinvest to build wealth. It also lists 10 real estate investments you shouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. Especially if you’re tempted by those late-night infomercials, that warning could save you a fortune!
The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investor's Kit: How to Make Money Buying Distressed Real Estate -- Before the Public Auction
by Thomas Lucier
from Wiley
Pre-foreclosure real estate is one of the hottest investment opportunities on the market. The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investors Kit offers step-by-step instruction and no-nonsense advice on how to find great deals, estimate fair market value, negotiate with sellers, sell your property on your own, and win big in real estate. Youll learn how to get the best deals on foreclosure properties before they go to auction and utilize simple ready-made worksheets, checklists, forms, and agreements that make getting started easy. Even people of modest means can get into pre-foreclosure investing—all it takes is a little hard work, persistence, and the tools youll find in this handy guide.
Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider's Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance
by Richard Bitner
from Wiley
Former subprime lender Richard Bitner once worked in an industry that started out helping disadvantaged customers but collapsed due to greed, lack of financial control and willful ignorance. In Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider's Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance, he reveals the truth about how the subprime lending business spiraled out of control, pushed home prices to unsustainable levels, and turned unqualified applicants into qualified borrowers through creative financing. Learn about the ways the mortgage industry can be fixed with his twenty suggestions for critical change.
Rich Dad's Real Estate Advantages: Tax and Legal Secrets of Successful Real Estate Investors
by Sharon L. Lechter
from Business Plus
Real Estate Advantages is for first-time as well as seasoned real estate investors. It reveals the tax and legal loopholes available and most important, how they can be used together to not only maximize your income--but accelerate your income from real estate investing. Sharon Lechter and Rich Dad's Advisor Garrett Sutton team up for the first time to deliver practical, proven strategies and formulas--from the perspective of successful investors, CPAs and asset protection attorneys--for acheiving the greatest leverage from real estate investing. Written in easy-to-understand language, this book de-mystifies the legal and tax aspects of investing with easy-to-follow, real life examples. Real Estate Advantages reveals how you can find good advisors, create steady monthly income, reduce your risk, pay less in taxes, make more money with your banker's money and, best of all, the government helps you!
The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It
by Robert J. Shiller
from Princeton University Press
The subprime mortgage crisis has already wreaked havoc on the lives of millions of people and now it threatens to derail the U.S. economy and economies around the world. In this trenchant book, best-selling economist Robert Shiller reveals the origins of this crisis and puts forward bold measures to solve it. He calls for an aggressive response--a restructuring of the institutional foundations of the financial system that will not only allow people once again to buy and sell homes with confidence, but will create the conditions for greater prosperity in America and throughout the deeply interconnected world economy.
Shiller blames the subprime crisis on the irrational exuberance that drove the economy's two most recent bubbles--in stocks in the 1990s and in housing between 2000 and 2007. He shows how these bubbles led to the dangerous overextension of credit now resulting in foreclosures, bankruptcies, and write-offs, as well as a global credit crunch. To restore confidence in the markets, Shiller argues, bailouts are needed in the short run. But he insists that these bailouts must be targeted at low-income victims of subprime deals. In the longer term, the subprime solution will require leaders to revamp the financial framework by deploying an ambitious package of initiatives to inhibit the formation of bubbles and limit risks, including better financial information; simplified legal contracts and regulations; expanded markets for managing risks; home equity insurance policies; income-linked home loans; and new measures to protect consumers against hidden inflationary effects.
This powerful book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how we got into the subprime mess--and how we can get out.
+++
