The Real Estate Game: The Intelligent Guide To Decisionmaking And Investment

I think that this is one of the best books I have read on real estate. Successful real estate investments are not just about finding the right property, doing the due diligence, and closing the transaction. It is also about understanding how the players in this game think and act and what their motivations are behind it. The authors propose that investors be value investors, just like Warren Buffett in the stock market investing. They need to be willing to buy at the right time when opportunities are being offered at a discount-to-replacement cost.

There are many people involved in each transaction, and it is hard to understand how these people fit in the big picture. In this book, the authors show readers the function of buyers, sellers, attorneys, and appraisers. I highly recommend this book to people interested in real estate.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

Mr. Poorvu's book does an excellent job of teaching investors how to analyze real estate deals. It reads a bit like a text book but serious investors will appreciate the intelligence and depth of the content.

I found this book extrememly valuable in deepening my understanding of the subject and providing perspective for me to carry my understanding further on my own by looking at market information and events.
Useful for beginner to intermediate level real estate interested people.

William Poorvu teaches at the Harvard Business School and also invests and develops on his own. He uses case studies to show examples of the techniques and rules he uses when investing which is how MBA's are taught. Overall its some great real world advice with no promises of making you a millionaire overnight.

The vast majority of real estate investment books to be found in the Barnes & Noble investment section offer variations of Mark Twain's stock market advice: "making money in stocks is easy. Only buy a stock if it goes up; if it doesn't go up, don't buy it." By contrast, Poorvu walks readers through myriad real estate investment situations, fleshing out the risks and rewards, and the mindsets of the various players. While written in an anecdotal style replete with real-life examples, the book also presents an encyclopedic overview of investment opportunities (direct, REIT, syndicates, etc.) and asset categories (residential, commercial, industrial, etc.). This is a real estate investment book written by an adult, for adults -- in contrast to all the other get-rich-quick-no-money-down titles targeting gullible novices.

Harvard Business School Professor and real estate investor William Poorvu has written a book about real estate is far above most real estate books. This book is nowhere near the run of the mill generic real estate book that tries to tell everything about real estate to people who don't have a clue. "The Real Estate Game" is a sophisticated commercial real estate book written by a real estate insider. This is not a book about buying your first house with no down payment.

What this is, is a book about commercial real estate projects from concept, commitment, development, operations, and harvest. The authors bring a behind the scenes and insiders' approach to commercial development. He lays it out in the form of a game with properties, capital markets, players and external environment. One of the stories in the book is that of Bill Zeckendorf's classic assemblage of Swift slaughterhouses into the United Nations property and vicinity. Included in the book is the authors' commercial due diligence checklist. This book would be most interesting to a person involved in commercial real estate, someone interested in commercial real estate or someone interested in the business of commercial real estate. I think that this is the kind of book that you can refer back to time and time again. There is a lot of information in this book and it may even be a book that you will want to read more than once. It has a depth, and quality of information contained far superior to the average mass media real estate book without the dryness of a real estate textbook

Considering how few books there are on commercial real estate I was happy to find this one. It has plenty of true-life examples and practical advice. The reviews that criticize the book because it assumes you are well-funded large-deal investor are not well taken. With bookstore shelves overflowing with how-to books about getting houses with no money down - books that assume you have no money, no experience and no real estate knowledge - we need some books for people doing large commercial deals. If that's not your focus, then this just isn't your book.

I do think the book would be better off without the real estate "game" angle. It reminds me of something an editor would coax the author to work in as a sort of hook or gimmick, and doesn't add much. But that's minor. Overall, entertaining and informative without covering the same ground as umpteen other texts.

A good read, with some interesting points. Presents a great overview of the subject for the novice. The experienced reader may find it to be a bit of an oversimplification. The case studies are good, too.

Poorvu provides a realistic narration of some of the opportunities and pitfalls one will encounter in developing or investing in commercial real estate. The book follows a step-by-step format covering the stages from concept and idea development through buying, building, operating and the issues involved in selling commercial property.

He also includes a chapter explaining and analyzing investment syndicates and REITs, and provides several insightful comparisons of real estate investment to publicly traded equity investments.

One negative point is that Poorvu uses the analogy of a "Real Estate Game" which he keeps referring to throughout the book. I found this more confusing than helpful - he should have either carried this through in more detail or dropped it.

From my experience I believe Poorvu covers the subject with factual information and good "mini" case studies to show what is involved. I disagree with other reviews accusing the book of catering only to those interested in very large properties. One can invest in smaller commercial properties - from 6-suite apartment buildings to 3-bay automotive service buildings - with as little as one hundred thousand dollars equity and I found the information provided in Poorvu's book to be just as relevant and informative.