apartments

Commercial Real Estate

Keys to Getting Started in Multifamily Apartment Investing

by Spencer Cullor | January 12, 2012
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“I want to start investing in apartment complexes. How do I get started?” If that is a question you have asked yourself recently, you are not alone. It’s something I hear on a weekly basis from both new and experienced real estate investors. They all want to know the keys to get started in multifamily investing the [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

How to Find the Best Commercial Apartment Deals

by Joey Wang | October 18, 2011
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The Leap to Commercial Real Estate Investments The stage is set . . . you’re ready to jump into the world of commercial real estate investments. Maybe you’ve been buying or selling single family homes, and your success is prompting you to think bigger, possibly on acquiring apartments — or, maybe you’re a new investor [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Small Multifamily Properties = Big Profits

by Spencer Cullor | October 15, 2011
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Many real estate investors overlook some of the most profitable investment properties because they don’t understand how smaller properties can equal big profits. They get caught up in the “bigger is better” mentality and miss out on some of the most profitable investments right in their own backyards. Contrary to what some real estate gurus [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Multi-Family Properties: Unconventional Ways to Increase Value

by Kyle Koller | August 27, 2009

As real estate investors, we know that the value of commercial buildings is determined by dividing its Net Operating Income (NOI) by its Capitalization Rate (Cap Rate). By definition, Value = NOI / Cap Rate. In other words, the property’s value is greatly magnified by relatively small increases in Net Operating Income. To illustrate, for a given Cap Rate (say 6%), every extra dollar in NOI increases the property’s value by $16.67 (=$1.00/0.006). In low Cap Rate areas like San Diego, that means there’s a huge opportunity to increase your building’s value dramatically!

Factors Affecting NOI

There are a number of obvious things one may do to positively affect the NOI of a property: raise rents, cure vacancy, decrease expenses. Well, what do you do if your building is 100% occupied at above market rents, and the property is so efficiently managed that you can’t think of a way to decrease expenses? Should you accept the status quo and simply keep up the good work? You could, but where’s the fun in that? You would be overlooking the unlimited number of ways to optimize not only your property’s NOI, but your returns as well.

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Commercial Real Estate

Let the Buyer Beware! Reducing Risk as a Real Estate Investor

by Kyle Koller | August 10, 2009

real estate riskInvesting in real estate is just that—INVESTING. Risk comes with the territory. The key to successful real estate investing lies in the analysis and due diligence of a potential income property. When done prudently and methodically, the investor’s risk is not only greatly mitigated, but he or she should have clear line of sight as to the property’s return potential. Sounds relatively straightforward, right? Well, this task becomes much harder when the seller tries to make a monetary gain by feeding on the inexperienced investor’s lack of knowledge or inadequate due diligence. Luckily, we’re all savvy investors at BiggerPockets.com and we know how to spot these seller exaggerations and fallacies. Let’s examine some of the common ones.

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Landlord Tenant

How to Place your Rental Listing for Best Results

by Brendan O'Brien | March 28, 2009

Finding qualified tenants is one of our biggest challenges. Last week, I talked about marketing empty rental units as a big funnel. Why a funnel? Because one end is an enormous group of people – the people who might rent a residential unit. The other end is just a couple of people – qualified prospective [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Where to Find an Apartment Building to Buy

by Ted Karsch | November 11, 2008

Realtor Listed Apartment Buildings A listed apartment building is simply any multifamily property whose owner has decided to sign a listing agreement with a licensed real estate agent. Most listings for apartment buildings will be held by a commercial realtor who has experience multifamily with properties. This can work to the buyer’s advantage because the [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Buy an Apartment Building Today?

by Ted Karsch | July 22, 2008

Buy an Apartment Building Today? In today’s turbulent financial markets many investors are looking for ways to grow their money that will offer a steady flow of predictable income and limited market risk. More and more people are buying apartment buildings to help diffuse the effects of inflation on their portfolios. Apartment buildings offer many [...]

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Financing Real Estate

Buy an Apartment Building — How to Structure Your Offer

by Ted Karsch | June 30, 2008

As I stress time and time again to new apartment building investors, before making an offer on any apartment building real estate property be sure that the investment will be a profitable one. Banks and commercial mortgage lenders will only lend money on an apartment building that has a Debt Service Coverage Ratio of at [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Apartment Building Investment “What Ifs”

by Ted Karsch | June 24, 2008

The decision to buy an apartment building investment for the first time can be a fearful experience for many real estate investors. The task of owning and managing an apartment building can seem overwhelming and the feeling of fear usually is due to the unknown factor of the “what ifs”.

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Commercial Real Estate

Apartment Building Loans — Should You Do It Yourself?

by Ted Karsch | May 19, 2008

With the recent melt down of the sub prime mortgage market banks are tightening up their lending practices in the commercial sector of the finance industry as well as the residential. What this means for the apartment building investor is that he or she needs to make sure that he is working with a commercial [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Buy an Apartment Building with No Guru Included

by Ted Karsch | May 5, 2008

There are many thousands of savvy investors across the United States who would love to begin investing in apartment buildings but they just don’t have a plan for success. In other words, they don’t have a clear understanding of the necessary skills, knowledge, and mechanics of commercial real estate investing. Unfortunately, there are very few [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Apartment Building Location, Location, Location.

by Ted Karsch | April 29, 2008

Determining the economic value of an apartment building’s location can pose challenges for novice apartment building investors as well as seasoned experts. As compared to evaluating the location of a residential single family home investment property, an analysis of an apartment building location can seem overwhelming. When examining the location of a single family home [...]

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Architecture

Feng Shui Maniac

by Bea Chenowitz | November 29, 2006

When I discuss with friends about buying real estate in Manhattan, and specifically about why my husband and I have not been able to find anything for years, I always blame him (out of his earshot, of course). He happens to be one of those people who want a perfect home, and we all know [...]

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