Mastering Real Estate Investment: Examples, Metrics And Case Studies Paperback – September 12, 2008

Gallinelli does a good job with this book, as he presents everything one needs to know to evaluate an income property as a potential investment. In terms of its presentation, the book is very basic and bare-bones, featuring text and numbers primarily, with a few tables, also full of numbers, interspersed at various points. Some may find this to be a bit boring and off-putting, and though I would have liked to have seen a chart or graph or two thrown in here and there to break up the monotony, the format does seem to play well and adhere to Gallinelli's upfront approach (I also suspect it makes for an easy-to-deploy electronic/Kindle version, too!).The book is organized simply around two (2) interacting parts. Part One of the book contains all of the metrics, each presented separately, and each introduced metric builds logically upon those that preceded it. All of the examples in Part One are simple and straight-forward (the reader could use them to build more complicated examples), and each of the thirty-seven (37) chapters ends with at least three (3) worked problems and solutions. Subsequently, all that is learned in Part One is then put to rigorous work in Part Two, where the reader can see how all the metrics and the various statements come together.Part One builds up to enabling the reader to set up an annual property operating data (APOD) sheet, and income and cash flow statements for each property under consideration for investment. The only thing that I found missing here was a work-up of detailed, initial and projected balance sheets for each property (so that one can keep track of one's all-important equity stake).Part Two of the book presents the case studies, of which there are four: the single family residential rental property, the small commercial multi-family (read apartment) building, the conversion (featuring a Victorian-style home with `historical' value being turned into a mixed-use commercial property featuring office suites and separate living units), and the small strip mall featuring four (4) distinct tenants. Each represents some of the more typical investment scenarios that a small investor in real estate would come across. Unfortunately, Gallinelli doesn't cover certain specialized niches of real estate that are typically of unceasing and great interest to the small investor, such as office properties, (whether large or small, metro or suburban), medical office/practice properties, mobile home (read `trailer') parks, parking lots, warehouses and self-storage facilities. Here, after setting up the initial conditions governing each property purchase, projections over a five-year holding period are made and an APOD sheet, income and cash flow statements are generated. Each case study features various permutations of the projections, with things like the mortgage interest rate, size of down payment, and final sales price among others being altered to see how they affect cash flow and return on equity.Although Gallinelli drops little insights here and there about real estate investment, the book is all about presenting the key calculations to determine if an investment property is a diamond (very likely in the rough) or a dud, and demonstrating how these calcs are applied. He pretty much modeled the `best case' scenarios- and fudged the rate of return metrics a bit (for which he can be forgiven). Cautious readers will note that he does engage in a couple of sleights of hand, particularly in the case studies, and it is up to the careful reader to glean from these (which, by the way, were overly optimistic, if-all-goes-well type situations) that 1) the typical rates of return on equity are low (one sleight of hand involves the use of cash flow to compute ROE- never mind that part of your cash flow is depreciation- a return OF capital and not return ON capital), 2) a large, upfront cash investment is required of the small investor (OK, he quickly and grudgingly came clean here) and 3) most important, all of those rosy projections one often makes abut real estate investment may not stand up to close scrutiny in the real world (Gallinelli gets five stars just for this, and he did a good job demonstrating it).Overall, Gallinelli successfully managed to put together a very basic, straight-forward and comprehensive treatment of real estate investment aimed particularly at the investor of modest means. A reader could even use this book as a basis or template for modeling potential real estate investments. As such, the reader gets a lot for her money here. Serious small investors looking to invest in real estate in an intelligent and business-like manner would do well to purchase and thoroughly read this book.

Unfortunately I didn't find this book until I had learned all this on my own by researching deals and asking questions of my agents. It would have made things easier (on me and on my agents!) when I was getting started. If you are getting into commercial real estate, as an investor or agent, I would definitely read this book.This author also has a website RealData.com where he sells software to analyze RE deals. The software looks pretty good.

The book was received in perfect condition.

This book is one of the best book I could expect for the real Estate Investment calculations. Its very Very concrete, crispy and concise with good examples. I really appreciate the author to maintain the concepts with good explanation and examples in complete books. After long time I found a book that covers the topic its written on rather thickness to maintain the page count.

I have not read the whole book yet, but so far, I am very impressed with the writing style. Very valuable information for anyone entering the investing world. It's also fun to read, and not dry like many of these books can be. Good sense of humor. Well done!

This is an exceptionally well-written book. The formulas and expert instructions on how to use them are simply priceless. This book is straight to the point, with no fluff, just black and white - I love it!

Great book for college level classes

Unfortunately, there is very little substance to the discussion for each of the presented topics addressed in this (very small) book. Essentially, each topic has a quick discussion and then a few word problems to illustrate the concept. You could just as easily take the table of contents and do a quick wikipedia search of the items and get as much information.