Real Estate Beginners Can Get a Solid Foundation in the Basics

If you are a beginner and want to quickly learn real estate basics, this is a great place to start. This simple book teaches the essentials that anyone involved with real estate needs to know.

The book won’t make the reader a real estate expert. But it easily explains the fundamentals for those who know little or nothing about real estate and who want to learn quickly.

Emphasis is on learning real estate terms. Most sections have brief, simple explanations of terms such as improvements, personal property, fixture and chattel. Then the following page reinforces the ideas with easy multiple-choice questions.

This well-organized book probably isn’t detailed enough to enable readers to pass most state real estate license sales exams, but it is a beginning. Readers who finish studying the book will have a solid understanding of realty essentials.

Some of the material is amazingly concise and thorough. For example, the explanation of fee simple and fee simple absolute says: “The type of landownership that gives the landowner the most rights possible. When land is owned this way, the owner and the owner’s heirs own it forever.” Then it goes on to explain a few more details.

Some of the illustrations make an attempt at humor but aren’t funny or illustrative of the topic. But they do lighten the book, which is sometimes boring.

Some explanations of real estate terms and topics are superficial. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t still useful and educational.

To illustrate, in explaining lease-options, the author says: “The lease-option gives the tenant a right to purchase the property at a specific price up until a certain date. The tenant is not required to purchase the property, but the owner is required to sell it if the tenant decides to buy it according to the terms of the lease-option agreement.” That’s enough for most realty beginners.

Ideally, this book could be used as a textbook in a basic class for students who want something less than a course in basic real estate principles. An experienced teacher is needed to explain some of the book’s topics more thoroughly.

For example, the explanation of escrows is good, but readers unfamiliar with the concept are sure to have questions that are left unanswered by the book. Some of the concepts, such as a “dry closing” and “close into escrow,” are obscure and not widely used even by real estate practitioners.

Readers of this book are likely to be motivated to learn real estate basics, either alone with self-teaching or in a classroom. The quiz questions with answers reinforce the learning experience. This “quick learn” book is ideal for general knowledge.