The Complete Guide to Real Estate Finance for Investment Properties: How to Analyze Any Single-Family, Multifamily, or Commercial Property

STEVE BERGES is a real estate investment professional with over twenty-five years of experience. He is also the author of The Complete Guide to Buying and Selling Apartment Buildings and The Complete Guide to Flipping Properties, both from Wiley. . He holds an MBA degree in finance and marketing from Rice University. As Principal of Symphony Homes, he is an active investor specializing in creating value through various real estate mechanisms, including single-family houses, multifamily

For novice investors and old hands alike, The Complete Guide to Real Estate Finance for Investment Properties focuses on the fundamentals of financial analysis and the key principles in property valuation as they apply to real estate investing. If you don’t do your homework, you could lose your shirt–just like you would in the stock market. Failing to do so will definitely mean failing to make a profit. But buying real estate willy-nilly is a recipe for disaster. Instead, author Steve Berges explains the basic theories of real estate finance, simplifies them for the average investor, and demonstrates how to use them in real-world situations. Investors will find everything they need to know about financial statements and schedules, investment performance measurements, the structure of financial instruments, and valuation techniques for any

Whether you're buying or selling, investing in big commercial properties or single-family rentals, you'll find expert guidance and handy resources on every aspect of real estate finance, including: * Proven, effective valuation techniques * Finance tips for all different kinds of property * How various financing strategies affect investments * Structuring financial instruments, including leverage, debt, equity, and partnerships * Measurements and ratios for investment performance, including capitalization rates and gross rent multiplier ratios * Future and present value analysis * How the appraisal process works * Primary appraisal methods-replacement cost, sales comparison, and income capitalization-and how to know which one to use * How to understand financial statements, including income, balance, and cash flow * Case studies for single-family rentals, multifamily conversions, apartment complexes, and commercial office space * A detailed glossary of important real estate terminology. Written for old pros as well as novice investors, this friendly, straightforward guide walks readers step by step through every stage of property analysis. This pr

Amazon Customer said Author knows nothing of basic finance. The author actually described the valuation of a bank CD as simply dividing the cash flow by the interest rate - a perpetuity valuation! But one does not receive the CD cash flow for eternity. A CD is a single cash flow that requires a simple time-value discounting.This teaching is akin to describing how the planets orbit the sun based on the theory of electromagnetics, or how a hybrid car runs so efficiently because a little gnome is in the engine turning a handcrank! A complete lack of conceptual understanding.The author also goes on to define "single-family housing" as having Author knows nothing of basic finance Amazon Customer The author actually described the valuation of a bank CD as simply dividing the cash flow by the interest rate - a perpetuity valuation! But one does not receive the CD cash flow for eternity. A CD is a single cash flow that requires a simple time-value discounting.This teaching is akin to describing how the planets orbit the sun based on the theory of electromagnetics, or how a hybrid car runs so efficiently because a little gnome is in the engine turning a handcrank! A complete lack of conceptual understanding.The author also goes on to define "single-family housing" as having 4 or fewer units and "multi-family housing" as having 5 or m. or fewer units and "multi-family housing" as having 5 or m. Great Book, but be aware of what it isn't Amazon Customer This is a great book, and well worth purchasing if you want to learn about finances for investment properties. It is not all that it could be, but don't let that stop you from using it to get started. All that having been said, here are the things that I had to be careful about: 1) Ten performance measurements and ratios are presented in chapter 6, and they represent the heart of the book. There is little overview of which ones are most importance or how to use or weigh conflicting or offsetting results. 2) The book is heavily centered on spreadsheets, which the author offers to sell to you. Others have criticized the spreadsheets for bei. Not the book for new investors or for financial analysis In my opinion, as a non-author, this book is poorly written.The book gives examples on financial calculations that can be done to determine if a piece of property is a good investment. However, the examples given are either too complex to be meaningful outside of the specific situtation or too simple to gain any understanding.The second section of the book on "case studies", is not made for new investors. The examples involve huge sums of money and very complex situations. Two examples come to mind: One case study discussed buying an apartment complex in an overpriced area, another rambled on about legal trouble he had with a local zoning