Robert Bruss

Robert Jacques Bruss (May 2, 1940, Minneapolis, Minnesota – September 26, 2007, Hillsborough, California) was a real estate attorney and syndicated columnist known as "the Dear Abby of real estate".

He was a 1962 business administration graduate of Northwestern University and a 1967 graduate of the University of California's Hastings College of the Law.

Bruss died of complications from colon cancer, aged 67. He never married and left no immediate descendants.

His columns appeared weekly in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and other major newspapers. He also published two monthly newsletters. His book The Smart Investor's Guide to Real Estate (1981) has appeared in multiple editions.

Tribune Media Services distributed his column for a quarter of a century. His writings have appeared in more than 175 newspapers and on many real estate Web sites. He taught real estate law classes at a community college, the College of San Mateo, (CSM) in San Mateo, California.