The Complete Guide to Buying and Selling Apartment Buildings,   ISBN:9780471684053

Customer Rating: 

This book is simple and basic, but it can save investors thousands of dollars in investment mistakes. Investing in an apartment building is different than owning a house or a condo and renting it out. Steve Berges has been there and done that. Learn as much as you can from him before pouring your money into an apartment building, because it might turn into a disaster. Many real estate investors had to learn the hard way during the 2008-2009 Recession. Paying $20 for a book that can save you thousands of dollars in mistakes seems like a deal to me.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

Customer Rating: 

After 5 intensive months watching numerous webinars, listening to tens of teleseminars and buying and reading various e-books and other material - this book put it all into perspective for understanding exactly what is involved in buying and selling apartment houses. Nothing else came close. I couldn't recommend it more highly.

Customer Rating: 

This is an excellent book for those starting out in this business. It has motivated me to acquire my first investment property. However, after presenting some of the facts of this book to experienced investor friends, their comment was that the book may be overly optimistic. In particular, Mr. Berges provides an example of how one can virtually double one's capital every 12 months by buying, rehabbing, selling for a profit one's property and rolling it over to a new property doing a like-kind exchange.

What he misses in his computation are the closing costs and commissions one incurs each time one sells a property (which can go up to 6 or 7%). Moreover, investors are skeptical about being able to sell a property after 12 months in this 2008 market.

Nonetheless, most of the other parts of the program are well written and shows the depth of Mr. Berges' experience. The level of financial analysis appeals to me - an ex-banker as the numbers are the end of the day will determine whether one is buying a good deal or not.

I would recommend this book to investors.

Customer Rating: 

Steve is a prodigious writer of numerous real estate investing books. That said, this one is my favorite. He explains how one can invest in multifamily assets to gain financial independence. He avoids encouraging his readers to speculate in real estate. Instead, he offers sound advice for both the novice and experienced investor alike.

I highly recommend you purchase this book!

Matthew A. Martinez
Author of Investing in Apartment Buildings: Create a Reliable Stream of Income and Build Long-Term Wealth 2 Years to a Million in Real Estate
www.matthewamartinez.com

Customer Rating: 

This book presents a well written and comprehensive guide to buying and selling apartment buildings. As one who has brokered, managed, and owned a large number of multifamily units, I feel I am fully qualified to endorse this as a competent source of information on the subject.

This book avoids the hype often found in many real estate books and completely disassociates itself with the "get rich quick" mannerisms often seen in guru style books. As a result, this book offers much value as it focuses on principals and sound information giving you an honest and genuine taste for what is involved in this industry.

Buying and selling apartment buildings and becoming successful within the industry is certainly not easy. The best start is building a solid foundation of understanding, and this book accomplishes that task. I would certainly not suggest one should cease their study after a single book, or even a solitary resource for the matter; however, this is a very qualified initiation and one I recommend keeping as a resource.