The Complete Guide to Buying and Selling Apartment Buildings
PProduct Description
From the Back Cover
Investing in real estate is a tried-and-true way to build assets, increase income, and prepare for retirement or the expense of college. With the proper guidance, a well-defined plan, and a little capital, anyone can profit by buying and selling rental properties.
Whether you're a first-time investor or a seasoned professional, this straightforward guide helps you map out your future, find apartment buildings at a fair price, finance purchases, and manage your properties. If you're an active real estate investor focused on single-family properties, Steve Berges's step-by-step plan shows you how to make the jump to multifamily units.
The Complete Guide to Buying and Selling Apartment Buildings includes tax planning advice, case studies of real acquisitions, and appendixes that add detail to the big picture. This new Second Edition also includes a handy glossary of all the terms investors need to know, helpful sample forms that make paperwork quick and easy, and updated real estate market forecasts. Inside you'll find:
- Ten ways to create value
- Six ways to locate multifamily properties
- Five key ratios every investor should know
- Two crucial techniques that will help any investor save thousands
- Three ways to determine how much a piece of property is really worth
- Five cardinal rules of successful negotiations
- Six reasons sellers sell their property
- Four effective exit strategies
- Five keys to your success
- And much more
- Paperback: 328 pages
- Publisher: Wiley; 2 edition (December 20, 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0471684058
- ISBN-13: 978-0471684053
- Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
Having given those accolades, here are a few of my constructive criticisms:
1. On pages 37 and 38, Steve gives nice charts illustrating the long-term financial benefits of investing in multifamily properties. On page 39, however, there is an error in referring to the big numbers shown. The reference is made to Investor A's "equity" of $2.1 million and Investor B's (the multifamily property investor) equity of $92 million. I just don't think Steve caught this, but those numbers don't refer to the investor's equity, but to the fair market value of his collective assets (his properties). The investor's equity might be in the range of 20% of that. I do like the charts, however, and I used a similar analysis in my recent book. One other note on the charts - they presume selling and buying exactly at the end of one year - a difficult task as Steve would surely admit. On average, I think 18 months to two years is a better time frame for flipping apartments.
2. Refinancing - Steve didn't give a chart showing the long-range effect of the "buy, hold and refy" strategy (using proceeds to buy again, but retaining the first property). In addition, Steve only mentioned the general banking guideline that you can only pull out cash up to 80% of the new appraised value (i.e., the bank has an LTV of 80%). However, you can get around this. I've done it. It requires a second lender giving a second mortgage, with a CLTV (combined loan to value) of up to 90%. As such, you can pull out much more cash.
3. GRM - gross rent multiplier. In his financial analysis section, Steve doesn't give much detail or provide real life examples on this crucial analysis factor. Granted, the cap rate is the analysis primarily used for commercial real estate, while the GRM is the one used for residential multifamily (2-4 units) real estate. Since many owners and selling brokers will "fudge" on expenses, a cap rate can be very hard to verify. The GRM, however, is fairly simple - just look at the lease agreements.
4. Lack of coverage on residential multifamily apartments. In fact, this is why I wrote my book on this topic. If Steve had covered it here, I would not have written mine. I like Steve's writing style and he knows his stuff. But for investing in small multifamily properties (certainly on residential, but probably up to about 10 units), we really have to cover valuation and selection of properties using the GRM. That and I felt like the "buy, hold, and refy" strategy needed much more coverage.
But for investing in commercial multifamily properties, I recommend this book as the only good one on the market.
Larry Loftis
Author: Investing in Duplexes, Triplexes and Quads: The Fastest and Safest Way to Real Estate Wealth
0 comments:
Post a Comment