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A global property education outlet: how real estate actually works, told through analogy, story, and a growing dictionary of terms.
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This Book Can Be Used Like a Dictionary
Nobody reads a cookbook cover to cover in order.
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- Why Real Estate Is a "Game"On a desk on Market Street in San Francisco, an appraiser has laid out two numbers side by side.
- Cycles: Everyone Knows, No One EscapesOn January 29, 2024, in the High Court of Hong Kong, Justice Linda Chan read out a brief ruling: the liquidation of China Evergrande Group was ordered.
- Learning from Failed DealsOne morning in January 2010, on the East River in Manhattan.
- Not a Number but a Confidence Interval: The Reshaping of ValuationIn 2021, a three-bedroom single-family house in a suburb of Austin, Texas, produced two answers.
- The Moment Servers Became an Asset ClassIn the spring of 2021, a farmer in the American Midwest heard from a neighbor that the parcel next to his had sold.
- What Survived the PropTech BubbleIn November 2021, Zillow CEO Rich Barton sat down for an earnings call and read investors a single sentence: "We've determined the price of failing quickly is far less than the price of continuing to lose money scaling an operation that isn't going to work."
- Bricks on Tokens: The Real Progress of Fractional Investment and LiquidityDubai, 2025.
- Why Real Estate Is a Game — Four Players (People, Money, Buildings, Time)Plenty of people think of real estate as Monopoly.
- Cap Rate: A Building's Price Tag Against Its SalaryA building's price tag is never set by what it earns today — it's set by how much the market trusts what it will earn tomorrow.
- NOI: A Building's Pay StubThe moment people open their pay stub, the first number they look for isn't the "gross salary" printed at the top.
- Leverage: High Heels That Add Height with Someone Else's MoneyPut on a pair of high heels and you instantly gain seven, ten centimeters of height.
- Depreciation: A Building That Only Ages on PaperSome actors play the same age on screen no matter how many years pass.
- Replacement Cost: The Seatbelt Question "What Would It Cost to Build New?"Say you're shopping for a used car.
- DSCR: The Building's Credit-Card Payoff ScoreIf you've ever sat across a desk from a loan officer, you know the first question isn't your salary.
- Cycles: Real Estate's Four Seasons — Except the Seasons Are Never the Same LengthWhen spring arrives, everyone knows summer is coming.
- Rent Negotiation: The Push-and-Pull of a First DateOn a first date, almost nobody opens with "So, what's your salary?
- Due Diligence = The Premarital Credit CheckImagine someone giving this advice to a couple about to get married: "Check their credit score and debt history, pull their medical records, and find out exactly why their last marriage ended."
- Why Did This Deal Come to Me? — On Why the Good Ones Sit UnsoldSay you spot a used car on the lot in unusually good shape.