BiggerPockets

So I have a few books I bought to further my education. When I read the first two I really learned nothing more then what I learned on this forum. So my question is:

Are reading books any better then reading everything on this site? If so which books are they?

I guess its a credit to this site more so than a knock to the books but I don't want to be spending money on books and hours reading them when I can read it on here in a much shorter time and of course for free.

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If you are tired of spending money on books. I have a great place to get them for FREE. The public library!

Man Im not going to lie I feel like an idiot. Good advice! I just have to get a library card to the library here since I just moved out here. I didn't know you could request them to order a book though that would be cool.

Matt,

I hoped that I was not insulting you by telling about the Library. But it does amaze me when people tell me that they never thought about it. My parents brought us up, by taking trips to the library. Not only did they want all of us to be avid readers, but we didn't have extra money so this was my parents form of entertainment.

On another note. You can go the Library and fill out a request form. Most Library's will honor the request and get the item. Some will keep it in stock, but most of the time it is just there for the "loan" period. I have done this lots of times. It makes the process faster if you have the ISBN #.

James

"My favorite so far is anything by Lonnie Scruggs."

Lonnie is great! Even if you never invest in mobile homes he can open your mind to innovative financing and note strategies.

"Deals on Wheels" is his most well known book, sold here in the BP store, I believe.

but the time it takes to read and digest a book. I think asking for suggestions is a good idea to weed through less than great books.

That is exactly what my thought process was!

I have read two years to a real estate million and the subject-to book by Patton (i believe) along with a couple of others. They were good in the sense it kind of gives you a game plan of how you can go about your own business I guess but I feel like they were still "guru-y".

I do want to buy and hold so I have positive cash flow every month but also lease option or wholesale just to get some bigger immediate checks. I think I may be kind of dreaming here but I would really like a book that explains all the behind the scenes stuff in a way, such as legal issues and stuff. I want to understand all that real well before I get my hands real dirty which is why I want to birddog for a while. It seems like a lot of people know exactly where to go if something goes wrong in the ideal process, but I am sure that comes with experience only.

Some advice, don't buy the books written by guru's. The only thing you will learn is that you cannot succeed without buying their system.

But somehow they did before the made the system up. Go figure!

This forum is an incredible resource, but it's no substitute for reading everything you can that's pertinent to your goals.

You'll find that it's all useless though unless you actually take action on what you read. The bottomline though is that if you invest in yourself and make YOURSELF the asset then your success will come much easier.

As for your comment about it being free, an old president of Harvard once said: "If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance." I really like that quote.

At the end of the day though...take action.

Think and Grow Rich, Magic of Thinking Big, Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Spin Selling. These books have help me when I first started.