Many investors start out by buying a property and renting it out to a tenant or household (the standard single-tenant model). That’s all well and good — and if that’s your main interest in real estate, I recommend you also read Eric Tyson and Robert Griswold’s excellent book, Real Estate Investing For Dummies (Wiley).
This book, however, is designed to go beyond simply renting out a property on a single-tenant basis, toward building a portfolio that encompasses different real estate strategies (such as renting out a property on a room-by-room basis or providing serviced accommodation). Why? Because I believe there are better ways to maximize your real estate income than the standard single-tenant model.
To put it another way, this book is designed to inspire you to grow as a real estate investor, beyond the standard route into real estate investing, and build real wealth for you and your loved ones. With that in mind, this book is built around the following core concepts:
By building a robust real estate portfolio — one that incorporates different strategies and multiple revenue streams — you’re much better placed to ride out market fluctuations and invest for both the short and long term.
Passive income is the key to building real wealth and security — not to mention the freedom to live life your way. So, wherever possible, you want your investments to be as passive (hands-off) as possible. In the early days, this may not be entirely possible, but as your expertise and your portfolio grow, you’ll be able to take a step back and devote more time to growing further, instead of focusing on the nitty-gritty day-to-day stuff.
Most real estate books tend to focus on one geographic location or another (typically, the United States or the United Kingdom), when, in fact, many real estate strategies can be successfully deployed anywhere in the world. If investing overseas doesn’t appeal to you, that’s fine — a number of the strategies in this book will almost certainly work just as well in your home country.
Continually investing in your own education and maintaining the right mind-set is critical for success as a real estate investor. In fact, one of the unique features of this book is that it devotes two whole chapters (Chapters 5 and 17) to key mind-set techniques. I believe your mind is what differentiates you from any other human being, and if you can learn to harness your mind (through education and mind-set techniques), you can do absolutely anything you want. Just dream big!
One final thing to note about this book: Within this book, you may note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If you’re reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as it’s noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist. If you’re reading this as an e-book, you’ve got it easy — just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.
Foolish Assumptions
During the writing process, most authors have a specific type of reader or audience in mind. I’m no different. So, while I was writing this book, I made some simple assumptions about you as a reader:
You’re looking to progress beyond the standard renting-out-a-property model and build a real estate portfolio that’s diverse and robust.
You don’t necessarily know which strategy or strategies are best suited to you as an investor.
You may not have a lot of money to invest in growing your real estate portfolio, and you’re looking for creative ways to expand and progress, without breaking the bank.
You aren’t sure which geographic location is best for you (whether you should invest in properties at home or overseas).
If that all sounds about right (and I hope it does!), this book is for you.
