booth52

Merrill Edge currently have a similar promotion, and I need a free checking account. Makes sense. The etrade promotion seems to be a bit easier/better regarding deposit bonus on a bonus/min deposit requirement level, but they do have higher fees post promotion and no free checking. Perhaps rollover to etrade first, get their bonus, then transfer to merrill edge afterwards and get their bonus too? Of course, the promotion may be gone at that point. Sorry, don't mean to be some etrade fanboy here! Wish you well on your brokerage hunting!

Have you considered etrade, to take advantage of their $200-$600 cashback promotion (depending on the rollover amount) + 2 months of free stock and options trades? After receiving the bonus, you can always transfer to another brokerage of your preference.

Wow, such a tragic story. Thought the writing was really well done too; may have to read Chris Ballard's other books and articles some time. Pleasantly surprised and Sports Illustrated gave him the finances and time that it must have took to actually do that piece.

Thanks. I remember having read his site a few times. Look forward to going back and reading his real estate related articles. +1 on Ragnar

In case anyone is interested in additional resoursces, I went to Barnes & Noble, and began reading What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow... And 36 Other Key Financial Measures by Frank Gallineli. So far I have found it to be insightful and straightforward, easy to read, and free of fluff/sales pitch (not done yet). Gallineli, is a real estate investment professor at Columbia, credential wise. http://www.amazon.com/Every-Estate-Investor-Financial-Measures/dp/0071603271/ref=pd_sim_b_3 http://realdata.com/blog/author/admin/ Another possible helpful tidbit: In case anyone else buys used books online, I have found that other book stores online are sometimes significantly cheaper than Amazon. I actually just purchased both the Poorvu and the Gallineli book at Abebooks.com at pretty much half the price than found on Amazon for their cheapest used book. Only negative is the shipping time is longer. It may also be possible the service may not be as great as Amazon, but just in case anyone else is looking for a deal...

The concept of value investing no longer working in my mind ties well with the concept of EMT, efficient market theory. Original post/thesis is that it (value inv) is now popular/widely used, and therefore has no edge. I'd say he's taking a small sample size/perspective bias to lead to a conclusion that value investing is now popular/predominant, and just as important, is not taking into account the fact that x% of Z% of people "value investing" in principle are not doing it correctly. There will always be a % of people buying/selling securities at prices above/below value, whether due to alternate principles, or incorrectly applying value investing. Otherwise, I could see EMT being true at those instances. There is no way value investing leads the decisions of the majority of the activity in the market. There's always dead money at the poker table of investing.

Thanks all for the replies. I'll be purchasing the Poorvu book and look forward to reading it. Checked that johntreed gururating. It's pretty interesting; the 1st guru I clicked on that he doesn't recommend was Richard Wood: Richard Wood—Murdered Wood was a paper (seller mortgages) seminar guru. He reportedly persuaded his seminar students to give him $4 to $6 million to invest in second mortgages. Instead, he used some of it to pay phony returns to later investors. Using the principal of early investors to pay phony returns to them and later investors is called a Ponzi Scheme after Charles Ponzi, the first to receive great publicity for using the scheme. Wood reportedly put the rest of the investor’s money into his own accounts—offshore. When he avoided investors or told them unbelivable stories explaining why he could not give them their money back, they forced him into involuntary bankruptcy. He stopped making payments on his $500,000 Las Vegas mortgage and was presumably about to flee the country when he was shot dead in front of his house. Not exactly the chaff I was thinking to avoid, but yah, definitely good to note! He doesn't have a recommendation on Poorvu. Wonder why he never read him. Thanks again.

I'm trying to read up on real estate investing, particularly on how to evaluate on a value based perspective as an investment alternative to securities. I'm curious if anyone has any recommendations on specific real estate forums (similar to this forums, perhaps), blogs, websites, and books. Ahead of some possible snarky "google that s**t" like responses :), my hope is to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak, and avoid possibly wasting my time reading some Jim Cramer/Mad Money-esque type content and hopefully find some more beneficial reading, again with a value investing like focus. While there may possibly be not that many opportunities now, it seems possible that during the 2008-2009 crisis, while I was busy trying to find some undervalued companies selling at 50cents or less on the dollar, there may have easily been a multitude of residential rental opportunities selling at even better valuations, say 30cent dollars. I'm looking to equip myself with the knowledge to act should a similar opportunity arise. It's also quite possible, after doing some research, I may find the risk/work vs. reward not as beneficial, and stick to investing in stocks! I searched real estate on this forum, and found out that hyten1 actually wrote an e-book. I don't have an e-reader, so I may not purchase this, unfortunately. http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/how-might-warren-buffett-invest-in-real-estate/msg36669/#msg36669 Also, found a link to this forum on another thread, which I'll be going through as well. http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums A top 20 real estate investing blog list: http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2010/06/28/the-top-20-real-estate-investing-blogs/