THE INSIDE TRACK TO CAREERS IN REAL ESTATE, by Stan Ross with James Carberry. Urban Land Institute. 182 pages. $19.95.
PURPOSE: To help anyone in a position to select a career - from the undergraduate to frustrated schoolteacher level - determine whether he or she is cut out to be a real estate agent, manager or entrepreneur.
AUTHOR'S CREDENTIALS: As with many textbooks, this book has two named authors: Ross, the well-credentialed principal author, is chairman of the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate, a former vice president of Ernst & Young's real estate services group and a life trustee of the Urban Land Institute, the nonprofit land-use think tank that published this book. Carberry, who is listed as "contributing author" which is think-tankspeak for "as told to," owns a writing and editing company and spent 10 years reporting for the Wall Street Journal.
EXCERPT: "[This book] is intended to help you ... learn about the many career opportunities available. ... You can find a very meaningful and fruitful career in real estate if you start by determining how your skill sets, strengths, goals and desires match the various career opportunities that are available."
EFFECTIVENESS: Most prospective or recent graduates exploring real estate careers probably have superior resources at their disposal, through school or professional contacts, to explain the differences between fund management and residential brokerage.
The glossy, display-size book also contains a fair amount of advice generic to any career jump-starter: Research professional tracks; network relentlessly; embrace entrepreneurship- linked buzzwords like "vision" and "self-starter."
What remains is the book's boosterish goal: persuading fence-sitting malcontents to scream "Get your own damn coffee!" and then storm out of the office and begin premising their lives on the book's Eleven Reasons to Choose a Career in Real Estate - among them "sense of accomplishment," "produce something enduring" and "intellectual challenge."
In fact, there is some value to these easily digested nuggets of wisdom, and to the interviews with Trumpish high rollers scattered through the text. Career shifters who possess a set of personality traits - tenacity, the desire to influence the built environment, financial acumen and professional relationship-building - may truly belong in real estate.
This book probably won't make anyone his or her first million, but it could help nudge a beginner down that lucrative road.