I posted excerpts from this book late last night. Then I heard Rush talk about it this morning. I have pasted parts, so Freepers can get a general idea and not have to click through.
Below is a comment I got back from Freeper gleeaikin:
I read Art of the Deal some 35 years ago. As a result I have much more wealth than if I had not read it. Several of the items quoted that worked for me are: “Most people think small...â€, “I always go into the deal anticipating the worst...â€, “never get too attached to one deal or one approach...â€, “not afraid to blur reality to utilize leverage...â€. He speaks of “delivering the goods.†My similar approach was keeping my promises.
Since writing that book, Trump has had his reality TV shows which have increased his tendency to grandstand. He and Christy tend to seem similar because they come from New York and New Jersey. I grew up in NJ, so speak from experience. Now that I have what feels to me like enough money I am looking for other big challenges, like changing my city or the world.
In addition to giving me some ideas on how to make money with real estate, the book also gave me ideas on thinking around a problem to make it a winner. A specific example: My late husband inherited a number of acres about 600 miles from our home. We decided to sell it, but then I discovered the IRS 1031, Starker Exchange. This enables you to buy a more expensive piece of investment property and not have to pay capital gains on the original property. So we bought a nice little piece of land about 120 miles from home in the mountains, which our children will inherit when I am gone and never have to pay the capital gains on the increase in value up to the day I die.
Prior to selling that land a coal company had offered us thousands of dollars for the underground coal rights. After we did the deal my husband was spending the money too freely. I suggested we buy a second house as a rental property. The house we wanted was too rich for our income, so we brought in a friend whose income was enough to swing the deal. Their share was 10% of the down payment. Five years later we bought them out at 2.25 times what they had put in and we were both happy. That property is now worth about 5 times what we paid for it 30 years ago. When we got the payment from the coal company I was afraid we would have to pay a good chunk of it to the IRS. Then I started thinking creatively (thank you Mr. Trump) and it occurred to me that when his mother died, fuel costs were higher than when we sold the coal rights. Thus we had a capital LOSS. I called the Geological Survey and found out how many feet of what kind of coal were under the land, multiplied it by the acreage so knew how many tons or cubic meters we had sold. Then I called a coal company and asked what they were getting for that kind of coal when his mother died and when we sold the coal rights. When all the math was done we ended up with a big deduction on our income taxes (depletion allowance?) instead of owing money on the sale.