Author: Michael Corbett

I’m pretty leary of any book written by a TV show host, especially the host of a show called Extra’s Mansions and Millionaires. But, Find It, Fix It, Flip It! seems to avoid a lot of the cliches that make many real estate books unbearable to read. There isn’t much talk of “achieving your dreams” or “gaining the financial freedom you deserve”, though it is a real estate investing book, so there is a certain amount of the pre-requisite motivational speaker talk.

One thing I particularly liked while flipping through the book was the idea of adding value to the house before reselling it. Adding upgrades and making improvements that people want and will actually pay for. The whole idea of adding value seems entirely lost to a large portion of the real estate industry, as any southern California home buyer can attest.

Overall the book is refreshingly different from most real estate books in that it focuses on taking something, making it better and then selling it for a profit, while giving useful tactical tips along the way. There are even before and after pictures of properties the author has flipped to show the types of change that can be made.

I didn’t find much good content about the book online, but I did find some basic reviews.

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Author: Barbara Weltman

Being that it’s tax season and I’m assuming that many, like myself, have not yet finished this yearly nightmare. So, I decided to find some help for my tax system ignorant self. This book goes through every conceivable tax break that you could receive. The layout and explanation of each deduction and break is very “non-accountant” and each one has the following short sections.

• Benefit
• Conditions
• Planning Tip
• Pitfall
• Where to Claim the Benefit/deduction

And sometimes an example is included on the more abstract ideas. Overall it seems very useful and hopefully will make my return a bit more than it has in years past.

See the review snippets for some articles on tax breaks

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Author: Dave Kansas

It seems like the Wall Street Journal Complete Money and Investing Guidebook was meant for novice/beginner investors. It plows through lots of terminology, explaining a lot of the ideas and terms that those of us who majored in say, humanities or communications (like me) missed out on. Flipping through this at Barnes and Noble, I found a lot of ideas that I had heard of but didn’t necessarily know much about,as well as seemingly straight-forward and jargon-free explanations.
I’m planning an starting to do more investing and this seems like it is going to be a good reference guide to help ward of shady brokers and financial planners (in the remote chance I use one) as well as help me do a lot of the research and decision-making myself.

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