Diary of a Real Estate Rookie by Alison Rogers

Diary of a Real Estate Rookie is essential reading for the neophyte real estate investor, and for anyone who listens with envy to cocktail-party stories that always climax with "huge capital gains." Unlike most popular authors in this field, Rogers refuses to present real estate as an easy path to riches. That's refreshing. If you want to read about how easy it is to be a landlord or to flip property, try Robert Kyosaki. Rogers always reminds the reader that the real estate life doles out a daily dose of work and risk. She's also great with the absurd anecdote. She describes a Manhattan penthouse sale where a high-end broker, "offering the apartment for $3.99 million had not managed to take away the show sheets left by [another broker] who had offered the unit just a few months earlier at $2.77 million. Just yesterday, I was in a model unit priced at $2.3 million, where, I swear to heaven, I could have done a better job installing the floors with a staple gun."