Tips and Traps for Making Money in Real Estate

A guide to making money in residential property, showing readers how to buy, convert or improve a property to make a substantial profit. Using the same, easy-to-follow "Tips and Traps" format of his earlier works, Irwin shares a common-sense approach to capitalizing on real estate investment opportunities in single family homes, condos, co-ops, and even apartments. He defines the current rules for investing success, highlights the reasons for failure, and breaks new ground by explaining how new considerations, such as crime, gated communities, changing tenant-landlord relationships and zoning restructions impact investment decisions. Pratical tips and techniques are given on how to: navigate safely through the cash flow and tax maze; zero in on profitable properties close to home; convert a "live-in" home to an income-producing property; boost rental income with cost-effective improvement techniques; branch out into multiple dwelling owndership; and to decide when and how to opt out of a property to realize maximum gain.