My review of "The Great Housing Bubble" now online

My book review of "The Great Housing Bubble" by Lawrence Roberts is now online at Inman News. From the review:

Besides working at his day job as a planning and development consultant in Orange County, Calif., author Lawrence Roberts regularly moonlights as the chief blogger for The Irvine Housing Blog. The book arose from Roberts' experience as a blogger and from the many reader comments he received while blogging.

If you're looking for a cheery and breezy "Housing Bubble Explained for Dummies," this isn't the book for you, nor would that even serve its purpose. What's compelling about it is that the author has a background in real estate that's far removed from the sales process, so he's able to step back and provide the sort of unemotional, macroeconomic overview that seems quite atypical for a guide to investing in real estate.

Of course, that makes perfect sense considering his master's degree in land development from Texas A&M University, which runs a well-respected real estate department.

Click here for full review.

"The Great Housing Bubble"

I'm in the middle of reading "The Great Housing Bubble" by Lawrence Roberts, who also runs the very popular Irvine Housing Blog. Like me, Roberts works in the building industry, and, despite a title that might imply it's looking backwards at the housing bubble, it is really more of a textbook primer on how to be a savvy real estate investor.

I'll be reviewing it officially for publication soon, but for now I just wanted to cite it as an interesting -- and timely -- read on how markets behave and what investors can do to protect themselves.