Symon He

Symon He’s Rental Property Investing QuickStart Guide is one of those rare beginner-focused books that actually respects the reader’s intelligence. The tone is friendly, but the content doesn’t shy away from the real math, real risks, and real decision‑making that go into buying and managing rental property.

The strongest part of the book is its structure: He walks you through the full lifecycle of an investment—finding deals, analyzing them with clear formulas, understanding show more financing options, and managing tenants without losing your sanity. The explanations of cash flow, cap rates, and ROI are especially clean, making the book a solid foundation for anyone who wants to move from “I’m curious” to “I’m ready to run the numbers.”

It’s also refreshingly honest about the work involved. There’s no hype, no “get rich quick” energy—just practical frameworks, examples, and warnings about common mistakes. If you’re new to real estate investing and want a guide that’s both accessible and grounded in reality, this one earns its place on the shelf. show less

This rental property investment guide is well-written and elegant in its simplicity and completeness. It covers all aspects of the process offering different viewpoints and suggestions depending on the investors familiarity and prior experience. Although the practice of buying and renting real estate is nothing new, the book provides thought-provoking viewpoints related to our specific economic times; where we may be in the real estate economic cycle and the impact of the COVID pandemic to show more real estate investing. This is an easy-to-read guide which will serve well as a reference book in the future. show less

A very good book for those considering and/or starting out in the real estate business. Not necessarily as a broker, mind you. This is more for the since popularized alternative ways, such as flipping, options to buy, and similar non-traditional approaches.

It covers a lot of the pitfalls, which is what I liked about it most. This book is NOT for anyone with even a couple of years' experience in real estate, by the way. But it is a great starter reference.

The "Real Estate Investing QuickStart Guide" was a disappointing read. The frustration probably has as much to do with technical issues and formatting as it does with my generalized disdain for subliminal advertising and insidious 'up-sell' techniques encountered too often in commercial products these days.

An opening page to the book that was posted to the platform 'Book Funnel,' has an image of a red stop-sign and says, "Before you start reading, download your FREE digital assets!" Oh, A show more bonus! Not unusual--many textbooks include digital supplements at no extra cost. The stop-sign ad gives a list of features, but then in small fine print, it says "Must be a first-time Audible user in the United States, United Kingdom, France or Germany. Audible membership is $14.95/ month after the first 30 days. Easily cancel anytime." When's the last time you've seen a come-on like that? And just how believable is that line 'easily cancel anytime?' " You get my point. The author's credibility had already been damaged and I hadn't even yet gotten into the real substance of the book.

Given what little I do already know about the real-estate market, I looked at the table-of-contents and determined that the book deserved a bit of a further read. That's when Book Funnel siphoned off my willingness to read very far into the book. The pdf-like images of the book pages appeared to have been cut off at some of the margins on the viewing screen and there did not seem to be any quick or effective way to visualize the entirety of the pages. Yet undaunted, I decided to move past the aggravation of encountering missing information (however scant, but missing nonetheless) on several of the pages to see what the author had to say about diving into the process.

I was surprised to see that one common 'insider-tip' that I had heard about before was not included. NO surprise there. Some of the best tips are probably kept by the pros for themselves. Or maybe that tip amounts to hogwash? Or has the market changed so much since Covid that it's no longer a good strategy? Whichever, I was surprised that acquisition strategy wasn't even mentioned. My apologies to my fellow LibraryThing readers for not detailing that tip here, but I don't know enough about real-estate investing to speak authoritatively on the subject--which is why I had become interested in a 'simplified beginner's guide."

If you have little previous knowledge of real-estate investing, and you want to learn more about it and don't mind putting up with the limitations of technology to read the book in an electronic format, then you may find that the book is helpful. show less