I have grandson (just graduating from high school) who is interested in real estate. He has listened to my wife and I babble about real estate and how we wished we started when we were young.

What books, or advice would you give this boy?

I gave him a copy of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and he says he is reading it. He has a plan to save money and buy a duplex and live in one half and rent the other.

My advice

You can read an read an read some more, nothing like doing it.

I would think you guys would love helping your grandson out.. an I would assume he would like it.

Why not just hold his hand an help him step by step an teach him yourself. It is not rocket science

Step 1. See how much money you can borrow.. you can help him compare offers an look at terms.. or if you want do a 50/50.. or just let him do it.

After that go to next step

Just help him step by step

Landlording on Autopilot.

Another vote for John Schaub. His book is the most "realistic" of the lot, and I like that when he spoke at the Mr. LL convention years ago he set out his philosophy being to "Own 30 single family houses in a good neighborhood, free and clear." I don't think he shared his cash flow from that, but let's just assume that 50% of rent goes to expenses, and with no debt, it should be easy to get between $700 - $1000 per month after all expenses and set asides PER DOOR.

So, math says: $700-$1000 * 30 houses = $21,000 - $30,000 income per month, net. One could probably get by okay on 1/4 - 1/3 million $ annual income.

One word of caution about Kyosaki: I know a lot of people like him because he help you "think differently about money." Yeah, I suppose so, but there are other authors who do the same if not better job of helping you think different about money AND they also show the proven steps on how to do it. Kyosaki is mostly fluff and stories. He admitted years after publication that there were no such people as "rich dad" and "poor dad." They were fantasies he invented.

I prefer to learn from people grounded in reality. Kyosaki got rich selling books, not by investing. He never names his partner or gives addresses for all the "hundreds of deals" he supposedly did. My impression of him is he's all talk, no walk. On a scale of 1 (nothing but fluff) to 10 (been there done that), I rate him 1.5 - 2.

Schaub by contrast is 10.

For step-by-step how to be a successful landlord, I recommend Leigh Robinson "Landlording". It's older, but the time tested methods still work today. 10/10!

What kind of investor does he want to be? Hand on? Silent partner? Flipper/wholesaler? Buy and Hold? Residential? Commercial? SFHs? Apartments?

I can't think of any single book that does a good job explaining all types of real estate. Most are specialized or overly generalized. My advice is step #1 is to pick a genre of investing, then go find someone currently doing it and take them out for drinks and appetizers and pick his/her brain. That could be your brain that gets picked, or another local wiz who has been in the trenches for 20+ years.

SFH investing is basic, simple, and easy to get in and out. It's a good place to start. Then if that gets boring or he wants to go bigger, move into "plexes" or small apartments, or small commercial spaces.

I'm not a fan of Kiyosaki - all fluff and platitudes; he's a bookseller more than anything else. Don't give your grandson anything to read unless he's interested - his duplex idea is good, but how much time does he spend with you actually doing the business - (e.g. working on property, cleaning up a recent move-out, reviewing applications, attending signings, etc)?

I read a book a few years ago that actually written by a 12 year. I can't recall the name of the child but he regularly attends OREIA event.

"How I turned $1,000 into five million in real estate in my spare time", by William Nickerson

I was gonna suggest some basic repair manuals for trades, but then I remembered this thing called the internet. Anything like that can be instantly searched and often a video will pop up showing you how to deal with it. Maybe still, a book to give general overview of a home's various systems.