Updated about 11 years ago on . Most recent reply
Looking to learn about apartment complexes
Does anyone have any recommendations on books/ebooks to get me started? Within the next year I want to own a complex even if its a smaller 20-30 unit place. My long term goal is to get into larger units like your 2-300 unit places. Anything you guys have read that you can point me towards? I'm trying to learn all I can.
Most Popular Reply
Just a thought - if I may...
Do you know why there are foreclosures in the multi-family space? Because people read books and buy apartment buildings.
Vast majority of what you need to know is not the facts, but the perspective on application of those facts. This can only be learned by doing.
Thus, I must, as someone already had, recommend that you start in the small multiplex pace to learn the moving parts and to pay your dues - just like monopoly!
Now - someone suggested that it' easier to obtain commercial loans. This is true, but the devil is in the details. The reason it's easier is because the borrower's experience is easier to underwrite. While it's true that the asset itself is qualifying as it relates to CF, you, the investor/borrower, have to qualify as the manager. The presumption is that this isn't your first time around the track and that you've exponentially grown you real-life intellectual worth to be able to successfully manage the asset.
Now - if you have a lot of money to put down, then you can "buy" the bank's trust. But, more often than not this results in the courthouse steps - you don't know what you don't know.
Start small is my advice to you - take it or leave it :)