Property Books

If you are looking to gather some more information on property investing, here are some property books to help out. As the books cannot delve into too much detail without knowing your personal goals and profile, they tend to be high level topics. These include identifying your goals and target market, outlining the different strategies, and how to source properties, finance and network. 

Note that the list below are specifically property books. There’s quite a few other books in the Entrepreneur, Leadership and Mindset categories that apply to Property as well. For example, the negotiation and habit topics will also be relevant in the property world. Also, as I’m currently based in the UK, these books are focused on the UK property market. The general concepts may be transferable to other regions in the world, but a lot of the tax talk is based on UK tax laws. 

The property books are listed in descending order from the latest read to the oldest. Last updated on January 2023. Be sure to come back for regular updates!

Key: R = Highly Recommend; + = Read more than once

Books:
  • Property Ladder: Design for Profit – Sarah Beeny: an oldie but still has some nuggets. As noted on most TV shows about property, focus on main selling points like kitchens, bathrooms, space and storage for practicality.
  • How to make money from Property – Ajay Ahuja: picked this up with the two books below from eBay, and it’s much of the same. It does go in to more detail on finances and numbers, but found it difficult to read. 
  • HMO Property Success – Nick Fox: another introduction to property style book, but with a focus on HMOs. Includes more detail about setting up and maintaining HMOs, including tenant management. 
  • Bricking It – Nicole Brennan: introductory book to property investment, with information on different strategy options, the buying and selling process, how to finance projects. 
  • The Complete Guide to Property Investing – Rob Dix: easy to read introduction to property investment, covering strategy options, process of buying and selling, financing. 
  • Home Buying and Selling Manual – Ian Alistair Rock: Broken down into the process steps of buying and selling a property in the UK which is helpful to those unaware. Slightly outdated but most of the process steps remain valid. 
  • Property Investment: The essential rules – Samantha Collett: Introductory level book to property investing outlining what to look out, analysing deals, managing tenants. Has action items to push and direct you.
  • Property Developers Book of Checklists – Sally Coulthard: Nice summary with quick tips on how to start and manage properties. You can flick between sections depending on your experience.
  • Successful Property Letting: How to Make Money in Buy-to-Let – David Lawrenson: Summarises the fundamentals of property investment – finding the right location, arranging finance, managing agents or tenants, and tax. Good for starters. 
  • Housebuilder’s Bible 12 – Mark Brinkley: Not planning to build my own house, but very in depth book about the self-build process. Great to know in case you ever need to extend or develop, and still good knowledge when you need to chat to a builder.
  • Real Estate Riches – Dolf De Roos: A very easy read (read in about a day and I’m a slooow reader). Reinforced that property allows you to leverage and grow compared to other asset classes. Property has historically kept pace with inflation in both capital and rental terms. Delves into the benefits of commercial property – why not do one big deal instead of many smaller deals? Same effort, bigger results. 
  • The Complete Guide to Property Investing Success – Angela Bryant: Nice introductory book for new property investors, easy to follow and provides personal experiences and tips from Angela. Become an expert in your chosen investment area.
  • Property Magic – Simon Zutshi: The main focus is finding motivated sellers. There’s numerous way to do this, but listen to their problems and identify their reason for selling. Then find a win/win situation, build rapport and relationships for longer term success.
  • No Money Down – Kevin McDonnell: As a property investor, you will soon find that your capital will run out due to the high cost barriers of entry. However, there are plenty of other creative options to finance property besides the standard 25% deposit. This mainly includes utilising other people’s available funds. The key to this is building your network.
  • Inside Guide to Property Development – John Howard: An easy to read book that provides insight to scaling and building a property development portfolio.
  • Property Pension Plan – Paul Mahoney: High level overview of investing in property, good summary for beginners in property.
  • The Property Coach – Aran Curry: The main takeaway for me was to focus on 2/3 bedroom homes, identify an area and price, buy below ‘market value’.
  • 100 Property Investment Tips – Rob Dix and Rob Bence: A neat little black book containing 100 tips from various investors and Property Hub members. The key is to plan ahead, build a good network to utilise.
  • How to be a Landlord – Rob Dix (R): Very handy summary if you’re self-managing properties. Provides an end-to-end process of being a landlord. This includes preparing the property, finding tenants and all the fun and legislation involved in managing them. The good thing about this book is that Rob updates sections of the book that may have changed due to government changes. 
Overall Themes and Tips:

Based on the above reading, there are a few general concepts pop up in some of the books. These include:

  1. Know what your property goals are – i.e. what do you want to achieve by investing in property?
  2. Build your network. As they say, your net worth equals your network. The better your “power” team (e.g. broker, solicitor, builder, agent), the more success you’ll have. Surround yourself with smarter people.
  3. Stay educated. 
Interested in some more reading?

The above property books are snapshots at the point it was written, printed or updated. Given the amount of legislation in the property world, some books may be outdated if the authors don’t update them. If you want to keep up with the latest strategies, information and legislation, then there’s plenty of online forums. The main ones I use and are active in are Property Hub and Property Tribes. Feel free to jump on and say hi! Always happy to chat about property! There are also a lot of trade magazines available. Again, the Property Hub (bi-monthly) is great. Check out my shout out! 

ABC Dad Property Books

Please comment below if there’s any property books that are must reads!