I'm diving into real estate investing after reading BiggerPockets and securing some capital. I'm keen on building a portfolio, particularly in multifamily properties.
Looking for recommendations on learning underwriting for multifamily properties—books, courses, or strategies that have helped you. Any practical tips on starting out or avoiding common pitfalls would be greatly appreciated.
Rental Property Investor · Brandon, SD · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
2y
Hi Max,
I started out by reading The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller. The last half of the book has some great actual-number information on underwriting. I use a spreadsheet I made based on that, though I've modified it a lot over the years. I also have a quick underwriting sheet I created to rule out properties within a few minutes. DM me with your email and I'll send it to you.
Hey I have recently seen your post! I hope this can help you!! Good move learning underwriting early, most people skip this part and end up losing money later. A couple of books that actually help a lot are The Definitive Guide to Underwriting Multifamily Acquisitions by Rob Beardsley, and check out Adventures in CRE. Also try building one model yourself from scratch, you'll learn way more than just copying someone else's. And be careful with your exit cap rate guess, if you get this wrong and it can mess up the whole deal. Happy to help more or take a look at your model once you build one.
Investor · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2020 · 102 posts · 94 votes
1d
@Max Gabriel I love that you mentioned underwriting as the ability to vet deals is key in mitigating risk.
I published a book on the topic (Mastering Multifamily Underwriting - 5 Steps To Confident Risk-Smart Apartment Investiing, available on Amazon) and have an underwriting community (you can find out more at MasteringMultifamilyUnderwriting. com).
I also post daily on LinkedInIn (where I have a free newsletter).