Review by for Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!
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In this third of the of the RD/PD series Kiyosaki discusses investing. He shows how he went from a negative net worth to millions. He discusses the importance of having a plan. I like the fact that he emphasizes the importance of having a mission in your business. Kiyosaki also discusses the importance of having a safety net in your investment plan as a back up to the aggressive real estate, business and stock investing. Good book and the best of the three in my opinion.

Review by Paul Polanco for Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!
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I’ve read close to 60 books on Personal Finance, Investing, and How-To-Be-Rich-types and this one is one of the best I have read. I have enjoyed Robert Kiyosaki’s other books, but this one is the best, in my opinion, because he reviews many of his principles from his previous books just in case this may be the first of his books that you are reading.This is not a *HOW-TO* book on HOW to become wealthy or which steps to take to become wealthy. Like the author states, this book is about the INVESTOR, not specific strategies. To become truly wealthy you have to do two things. First, you NEED to change how you think, not just about money but about all areas of your life. Why go after riches if your marriage is in trouble or you don’t spend enough time with your children? Secondly, you NEED to take different actions. If your last 5 years were miserable, then your next 5 years will be the same unless you DO something different. If at least 95% of the people in this country are not wealthy then you cannot do what 95% of people do. You have to do what the other 5% do; people WILL tell you you are crazy or what you are doing won’t work. This happened to me and I am GLAD I did not listen to those people who still work at a job (I don’t).Most people do not Incorporate, most people do not invest in mutual funds and stocks correctly (they buy high and sell low), most people do not know how to buy real estaste, and most people know little about taxes, accounting, and personal finance. If one book was to be written about all those subjects in a general sense, it would still be thousands of pages long. Robert’s genius is that with his “Rich Dad/Poor Dad” metaphor, he gets the average reader to realize that it is not some magic formula or some great unattainable secret, but that it is our responsibility to go out and learn what the rich do and WHY they do it. I never thought I would read a book about the Investor that would have given me this many new ideas. A must have for those who want to get out of the “rat race.”Beware the negative reviews regarding this book because they are written by people who “don’t get it.” You either “get it or you don’t.” Reviews written by people who have not read the book and have not been there are a waste of your time. Like I said, I’ve been there, I own and have read this book twice already. People WILL put you down in obvious or subtle ways if you go for your dreams. Don’t listen to the 95%, listen to the 5% that have made it.Good luck and may all your dreams come true.

Review by Adam T. McClure for Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!
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One of the most challenging things about learning to use your money wisely is avoiding the plethora of bad advice available. This book is a perfect example of something that is seemingly innocuous which, if the advice is followed, will certainly lead to a lot of financial missteps.

For example, Kiyosaki discusses buying rental properties and discusses a history of purchasing single-family houses and renting them out to achieve positive cash flow and financial independence in “Rich Dad/Poor Dad” (the book that started his repetitive Advisor series). However, from my own experience in real estate there are few single-family homes in areas with decent appreciation (Bay Area, Boston, NYC, Chicago, RTP-NC, etc.) that will be cash-flow positive without investing at least 25-30% equity into the deal. If I took my money and did a number of such deals and evaluated my annual Return on Equity (ROE always trumps ROI) I quickly realize I’m getting about 6% on my money. Wow! Is that “thinking with quick words” or “increasing my cash flow”? Not at a rate which will make me financially independent in less than 20 or 30 years. So how is this advice really better than the “buy an index fund and fugeddabout it” conventional wisdom of the financial services marketing community? Don’t I get the same place in the same amount of time? When you factor in the hassle of tenants and maintenance of real property the index fund is looking like a no-brainer!

I own 11 rental units and a million-dollar home and I can say simply that there are few opportunities out there that haven’t already been discovered and exactly NONE that don’t have a measure of risk. Kiyosaki does everyone a disservice by encouraging them to seek financial freedom then giving vague and erroneous advice. His real estate recommendations are dangerous and understate the tremendous toll on your time and energy rentals can take. His equity investment advice is so vague as to lack coherent value.

If you want to make money consistently you need to have a real plan. Not “I want to be wealthy in 10 years” but rather a keen understanding of your strategy, entry and exit criterion for each investment, ability to roll with the punches, and continous monitoring of your plan to find the flaws. Most of the time your assumptions were wrong or you left out a critical variable. Knowing how to fix the system and keep going is what differentiates the gambler from the successful investor.

If you want to get started in real estate please evaluate:

http://www.johntreed.com and pay close attention to his rules for evaluating “investment gurus”. They are a great rule-of-thumb. I can’t offer a similar source for equities because I haven’t invested the time to build my equity portfolio since learning that I had no idea what I was doing with my money in the markets. BTW, being honest with yourself about what you do and don’t know is the best place to start building your own business plan for financial freedom.

Good Luck!