Commercial Real Estate Investing For Dummies. Peter Harris

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Introduction

      Investing in commercial real estate is a rare opportunity where someone can start out without a fancy education, without a bunch of money, and without much of any experience and work their way up to be able to live a life that most people can only dream about. That said, it’s not get-rich-quick. We believe that anyone can succeed at this if (and only if) they’re willing to put the time and effort into learning, step by step, what to do. And that’s what this book is about.

      We’ve been investing in commercial real estate for a combined total of 57 years. On top of this, we’ve worked with thousands of our clients over the years helping them to get started investing in commercial real estate. In this book you’ll discover not only what to do, but how to do it. You’ll learn how to avoid making mistakes because, well, we’ve made plenty of them over the years.

      This book can change your financial life forever. And once you have some passive cash flow coming in from a few commercial properties, you’ll have more breathing room to focus on the other parts of life that matter even more: time with your family, making a difference, leaving the world a better place.

About This Book

      This book is your complete how-to guide for investing in commercial real estate. You may want someone who’s already investing to help you oversee your first deal or two, but our goal is to give you enough information so that you’ll be able to go out and find, structure, and negotiate profitable, money-making deals on commercial properties.

      In these pages, you have all the answers to complex issues broken down into an easy-to-read format. Start at the beginning, in the middle, or simply pick a section that interests you most. It doesn’t matter where you start because the most important thing is that you begin today. You may have been looking for your opportunity to become your own boss, make more money than your stockbroker, or simply be able to retire fast by investing in commercial real estate. Now, with this book, you finally have the opportunity and the information you need to take charge.

We mention our students a lot in this book, and that’s because we each run a mentoring program. One of them is called the Commercial Dream Partner Team, and the other is called the Protégé Program. We do a lot of deals with our mentees across the country. We hope that by sharing the success of others who are just like you, we’ll be able to encourage you to do whatever it takes to live the life of your dreams.

      We include the following conventions to help you make your way smoothly through this book:

       Important terms are shown in italics, with definitions following the terms.

       Boldfaced words highlight the keywords in bulleted lists and numbered steps.

      A quick note: Sidebars (shaded boxes of text) dig into the details of a certain topic or share examples, but they aren’t critical to understanding the topic. Feel free to read them or skip them.

Foolish Assumptions

      When writing this book, we kept a few assumptions in mind about you:

       You’re interested in real estate but you’re probably not as rich as Warren Buffett. However, we assume that you aren’t broke and looking for money to make your next house payment either.

       You have some experience in business, management, or real estate investing, whether it is in commercial real estate or not.

       You’re sharp enough to be investing in commercial real estate, so you aren’t going to rely on us for legal, tax, or other professional advice. After all, one of us is a former auto mechanic, so you should take everything we share with you as our real-world experience. That means you need to combine our experience with the counsel from your own attorney and your tax professional.

Icons Used in This Book

      In this book, we highlight certain types of information with icons so you can find what you’re looking for fast. Here are the icons we use and what they mean:

The text highlighted by this icon usually consists of helpful ideas and strategies to make your investing easier.

      

This icon highlights important points that are essential to your successful investing.

      

The Technical Stuff icon marks information of a highly technical nature that you can normally skip over.

      

Investing is fun but it also has pitfalls that you need to watch out for, so this icon does the job.

Beyond the Book

      In addition to the abundance of information and guidance related to commercial real estate investing that we provide in this book, you get access to even more help and information online at Dummies.com. Check out this book’s online Cheat Sheet. Just go to www.dummies.com and search for “Commercial Real Estate Investing For Dummies Cheat Sheet.”

Where to Go from Here

      This book is written so that you can jump into the shallow end, or you can go off the high dive, depending on your experience level. You can begin anywhere you want — none of the chapters need to be read before any of the others. So, if you need a refresher course, start with Part 1. If you’re looking for an easy way to get started, don’t