Book on RE Cycles?

Question

Hi all,

Does anyone know of a book that would help in understanding how the RE market cycle works? I'm new to investing and want to be able to make an educated decision as to when the best time to invest in a market would be. Obviously, one can never know for sure, but to know some indicators would help.

Account Closed · Answer

@Ezra Nugroho and Kal,

I can tell you which forum Robert Campbell is hanging out. I have been a part of that forum for over 5 years. I'm NOT a fan of Robert Campbell for soooooo maaaaaaany reasons. I will not get into it.

Bruce Norris in SoCal is considered to be the oracle of CA real estate. Bruce told his investors to buy in 1997 as he believed its value will be doubled by 2005. He told his investors to sell their holdings in the first quarter of 2006, and again advised his investor to buy again in 2011. As of now, he believe we have more upside potential.

Look up a thread that was started by J. M. a couple of months ago.  He has charts on where we are in the real estate cycle.

If you have to follow someone in CA, do yourself and your family a favor by following Bruce Norris. As someone in the other forum has said, Robert recycled Bruce's materials and put them in his book. Would you rather follow a successful real estate investor for decades or a failed real estate investor?

Best of luck with your real estate endeavors. It's truly a rewarding journey.

Brent Seehusen · Answer

I would echo what Account Closed is saying.  Campbell's book is a good starting point for learning this topic, but Bruce Norris is much more nuanced in his analysis.  I saw Robert Campbell speak at the FIBI meetup in Orange County about a year ago and I have to say he is the worst speaker I've ever seen at any REIA meeting hands down.  He is scatter brained and mostly wanted to talk about owning gold and the coming financial collapse, blah, blah, blah...  Not what I was looking for at a real estate meeting.

The book by Craig Hall looks interesting.  I'll have to add that to my list.

Joel Owens · Answer

For me I love real estate so LOVE digging into good books with meaty content.

Way back years and years ago I would go into Barnes and Noble bookstore and they had the chairs and sofa's where you could look at books for free.

I would pull a ton off of the shelf. I would go through 3 books or so in a few hours each time. Some of them had a lot of fluff which is why I didn't buy them but I could preview at the store. Ones where I get into the first chapter and I want to read it slow because it was so good those were the ones I bought to study in depth.

Today I do not do that anymore because I know all of that content pretty much of those books and I look on Amazon or elsewhere for more advanced specialty books that not as many people buy to advance my knowledge.

Joel Owens · Answer

Both of these I found enjoyable reads.

http://www.amazon.com/Timing-Estate-Market-Robert-Campbell/dp/0972441808

http://www.amazon.com/Timing-Real-Estate-Market-Sell/dp/0071421955/ref=pd_sim_14_1/183-0566554-0021424?ie=UTF8&refRID=1SG8TD957F8J5NEJJ45R

All the best to your success.

Jane W. · Answer

Not sure about books, but there are papers.

You can look at mortgage issuance data. Assume that a constant % of the U.S. home buyer population is prime and the rest subprime. If the bank is lending wrt good standards, one can assume mortgage issuance is somewhat stable year to year (or fluctuates slightly with interest though I wonder if interest rate actually deters primary home buyers at all). So if there's a significant uptick in mortgage issuance, it means banks is making more loans to subprime borrows. Give that about 2-3 years and you get the next dip.

Other academic papers mention the 18 year real estate cycles though we all know past returns do not predict future. And so much of the monetary policies have been changed since 08...so I wouldn't put too many chips on the 18 years cycle. I've been thinking about this too given the late volatility in the market, so interested to hear how others are planning their investments around the cycles, or what data points they are taking into consideration.

Khaled Seirafi · Answer

Thank you @Joel Owens

Ezra Nugroho · Answer

@Joel Owens

When you said enjoyable, did you mean that they are entertaining, or educational? Just kidding :)

Thanks for your recommendations.

Khaled Seirafi · Answer

@Joel Owens Do you follow the calculations and steps in Timing the Real Estate Market (Robert Campbell) pretty closely?

Book on RE Cycles?

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