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Commercial Real Estate Investing for Dummies
Make real estate part of your investing strategy!
Thinking about becoming a commercial real estate investor? Commercial Real Estate Investing For Dummies covers the entire process, offering practical advice on negotiation and closing win-win deals and maximizing profit. From office buildings to shopping centers to apartment buildings, it helps you pick the right properties at the right time for the right price. Yes, there is a fun and easy way to break into commercial real estate, and this is it. This comprehensive handbook has it all. You’ll learn how to find great properties, size up sellers, finance your investments, protect your assets, and increase your property’s value. You’ll discover the upsides and downsides of the various types of investments, learn the five biggest myths of commercial real estate investment, find out how to recession-proof your investment portfolio, and more. Discover how Investing in commercial property can make you rich in any economy. Get Commercial Real Estate For Dummies, and find out how.
Thinking about becoming a commercial real estate investor? Commercial Real Estate Investing For Dummies covers the entire process, offering practical advice on negotiation and closing win-win deals and maximizing profit. From office buildings to shopping centers to apartment buildings, it helps you pick the right properties at the right time for the right price. Yes, there is a fun and easy way to break into commercial real estate, and this is it. This comprehensive handbook has it all. You’ll learn how to find great properties, size up sellers, finance your investments, protect your assets, and increase your property’s value. You’ll discover the upsides and downsides of the various types of investments, learn the five biggest myths of commercial real estate investment, find out how to recession-proof your investment portfolio, and more. Discover how Investing in commercial property can make you rich in any economy. Get Commercial Real Estate For Dummies, and find out how.
358 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
206 people are currently reading
355 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 17, 2015
Loved it- one of the first real estate books I've read focused on commercial vs. single family through quads. Very all encompassing good readable style that demonstrates a lot off experience by the authors. I've read several other RE books by Peter Conti, and realized about halfway through the book that Peter Harris is the producer for an excellent series of YouTube videos on commercial RE.
December 15, 2019
Pretty informative, especially for a person who's essentially a newbie (the only other book on real estate I've read is the The Wall Street Journal. Complete Real-Estate Investing Guidebook which, if I remember correctly, mostly focused on residential real estate). Some of the book might be outdated since it was published in the midst of the financial crisis, but I can't take points off for that.
Three criticisms. First, the constant mention of the author's "commercial mentoring" program makes the book feel like marketing for the program (as of December 2019, the main site, commercialmentoring.com, is now defunct). Second, and similarly, Conti uses some of his mentees as examples that read like a classic "look at this person who made it rich; you can do the same!" pitch. These two problems edge the book in the direction of these silly let-me-teach-you-to-get-rich mentoring programs that, today, are heavily marketed on YouTube and social media. If I wanted to hear from Grant Cardone, I would've paid for his stuff! Lastly, Conti talks about the real estate "cycle" and mentions how it lasts about 10 years. I'm not so sure about that. I don't recall him mentioning that one should try to time the market (impossible to do repeatedly), but talking about cycles is a little too close to suggesting that timing can work.
None of these three criticisms tank the book - that's why I gave it 4 stars and not fewer. But it's important to watch out for these tropes because they're common in many popular business books and, in my opinion, especially common in real estate investing books. This book is, overall, pretty limited in the hype department relative... at least relative to the synopses I've read on other real estate books.
Three criticisms. First, the constant mention of the author's "commercial mentoring" program makes the book feel like marketing for the program (as of December 2019, the main site, commercialmentoring.com, is now defunct). Second, and similarly, Conti uses some of his mentees as examples that read like a classic "look at this person who made it rich; you can do the same!" pitch. These two problems edge the book in the direction of these silly let-me-teach-you-to-get-rich mentoring programs that, today, are heavily marketed on YouTube and social media. If I wanted to hear from Grant Cardone, I would've paid for his stuff! Lastly, Conti talks about the real estate "cycle" and mentions how it lasts about 10 years. I'm not so sure about that. I don't recall him mentioning that one should try to time the market (impossible to do repeatedly), but talking about cycles is a little too close to suggesting that timing can work.
None of these three criticisms tank the book - that's why I gave it 4 stars and not fewer. But it's important to watch out for these tropes because they're common in many popular business books and, in my opinion, especially common in real estate investing books. This book is, overall, pretty limited in the hype department relative... at least relative to the synopses I've read on other real estate books.
October 9, 2017
Great Book
Good information. The authors presented the material in normal person language with good explications. I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to get involved in commercial real estate.
Good information. The authors presented the material in normal person language with good explications. I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to get involved in commercial real estate.
August 5, 2019
As 2018 winds down, I've been thinking about my goals for next year. One of them is to get involved with commercial real estate investing (CREI) in some capacity. Maybe it's actually owning a building outright. Or simply investing in a REIT. Whatever the case is, I just want to jump into this asset class. I've been reading a few books and listening to a TON of podcasts on real estate investing (more on those in another post!) and one of those books is this one---Commercial Real Estate Investing For Dummies by Peter Conti and Peter Harris. Let's dive in!
An Overview of Commercial Real Estate Investing
Like many of the other "For Dummies" books, this one is designed as sort of like a manual of commercial real estate investing. There are chapters that talk about the benefits of CREI and how to get started finding and making deals. The book also highlights the nitty gritty details of financing and owning and operating the investments.Lastly, there is emphasis on how investors can scale their business to be sustainable for the long-term.
Commercial real estate investing can be very lucrative and CRE tycoons often make the news: many of us have heard of some of the more [in?]famous real estate investors such as Robert Kiyosaki, author of the best-selling Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Larry Silverstein, owner of the World Trade Center, and of course, Donald Trump, developer and current U.S. president. There's a reason why the rich love real estate: it can offer a diversified stream of income outside of the stock market, it can be a tax shelter, and it can be bought using leverage. These same reasons also make commercial real estate investing alluring to the average Joe Snehann!
Useful Advice and Tangible Tips
What I really enjoyed about this book was that the authors support their advice with reason, statistics, and real-world examples. For example, there are some great tips on building and maintaining a rolodex of potential investors, including a word-for-word script readers can use to build their own network (Pg. 78). It all sounds so easy...but the authors make it clear to readers that building that rolodex comes from a lot of hard work spent on networking and maintaining relationships.
There are even moments throughout the book where the authors talk about mistakes they made and how they lost a lot of money because they failed to educate themselves properly. And it's not just the authors. The book features short parables of other investors who lost money and recovered by following the straightforward advice provided.
Education is key. And one of the real-world tips the authors talk about is around the 1031 exchange (Pg. 303), which can be very useful to commercial real estate investors, but only if they're very meticulous about its strict requirements. Such advice is refreshing from that of the other real estate "gurus", who promise prospective investors a life of sipping margaritas on a beach...just as long as those investors pay $50,000 to sign up for their course! It's reassuring to know that even though the authors are both successful investors, they went through their series of mistakes.
Peter Harris, co-author of Commercial Real Estate Investing for Dummies, gives an overview of the book.
Overall Thoughts
Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. While I found some sections to be a bit dry, most of the book was very informative and digestible. For these reasons, I would give it a rating of 4.5/5.
Read If You:
-Would like a 101 of the different opportunities in commercial real estate investing
-Currently invest in single family housing and would like to expand into commercial investing
-Read one of Peter Conti's or Peter Harris's other books (review coming shortly!)
Don’t Read If You:
-Are an intermediate or experienced commercial real estate investor looking for more advanced strategies
-Like the "traditional" vehicles of investing, such as stocks and bonds, or the speculative vehicles, such as crypto or private companies and are unwilling to change your opinion on why CREI is "too risky"
-Are not willing to put in the time and hard work into learning the ins-and-outs of commercial real estate investing. If you think CREI will immediately lead you to sipping margaritas on a beach, stay far away from this book!
Thanks for reading!
May 5, 2021
Peter Harris also has a free course to go with this book.
February 23, 2020
This reading covers some very up to date topics on real estate. It makes a clear comparison between residential and commericial real estate. It guides readers through common real estate practices and the steps of negotiationg during the cycle and process.
December 25, 2023
More than I could have asked for.
Very thorough and insightful with lots of suggestions and links to resources that you will need.
I loved it and got a tremendous amount of great information that I'm sure to use.
Very thorough and insightful with lots of suggestions and links to resources that you will need.
I loved it and got a tremendous amount of great information that I'm sure to use.
December 9, 2015
Newbie looking to learn the ropes. Good book for commercial real estate 101.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews