Customer Reviews

The BEST Damn Commercial Real Estate Investing Book Ever Written!

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is my second posting as the first somehow 'magically' disappeared. I have even been in touch w/ the author as a gesture of good faith from someone working in the commercial real estate industry for years. She is now pushing her seminars and offered a discount on now-cancelled classes but declined to approach any practical lending discussions. She trashes several brokers in the book, provides little if any realistic advice nor categorizations of the types of financings, particularly insurance and pension fund lenders which are the most solid in the business. It may be she is collecting monies for investments in properties without a license to do so as solid lenders require 20-30% down sourcing and seasoning the down payments. (Gee, how did we get into a lending crisis for residential ~ sorry but that doesn't play w/ commercial but don't get me started...)

Spend your time elsewhere. The book covers deals that were not completed. It is almost entirely based on two or three transactions which were completed during the height of the R.E. Boom. Neither can one find her supposed television show. It further turns out her condo project is not yet completed though she treats it as a huge success in this book. (No condo financing is happening right now and has turned back to apartment/multi-family).

If you are an absolute novice, you may learn something in this self-published, agrandizing book. Otherwise, move on and search for the Robert A. Morse guide to commercial real estate investments (quicker read) or practically ANY other book on commercial investing. In all my years of commercial real estate I've never bumped into anyone who has made legitimate money starting from an 'expert' seminar. Stay away from those attempting to parlay a new speaking career particularly similar to this author who has little practical experience!

I've never written an Amazon review before this one. This was such a waste of money that I had to warn others.

As I understand it, the author made money in Las Vegas on her residence, land and some single families, and then decided to get into commercial real estate. She bought a 57 unit property in Ohio and a 24 unit in California that she used for a condo conversion .

One reason I bought this book was for the It's All About The Numbers chapter. The best paragraph in this chapter suggests you read What Every Real Estate Investor Needs To Know About Cash Flow..... by Frank Gallinelli.

With the 57 unit purchase she notes that she didn't carefully read the mortgage documents before signing and so had a a four year lock out on her first mortgage with a second mortgage with a balloon payment due in three years.

Some quotes: "While I don't personally own any retail buildings, I was in contract to purchase one." I don't want to spend too much time discussing land development, as my experience is limited." "...[The property manager she employed] once hired a painting contractor to paint one of the vacant units, at a cost of $2000. I almost passed out! In Ohio, I can get the interior of a comparable sized unit painted for $500."

In the chapter on protecting your assets she talks about buying property in your own name and then deeding the property to a corporate entity after you close. Isn't this going to make the mortgage due in full?

Did I mention this book is self published?

No index.

I have never written a review on Amazon yet but I feel pretty strongly about this. This book is a waste of time and money and that is the bottom line. This thing is a disaster from start to finish.

First off, a 3rd grader could write a book with fewer typos than this book has. It was utterly annoying everytime I ran across one........which happened numerous times per chapter and even per paragraph sometimes. How can someone release an informational book that is supposed to teach and guide people on a particular subject when the author comes across as a dummy who doesn't know how to write or even use spell check??

Secondly and most importantly was the quality of the actual content. It's rather poor. This book doesn't talk about commercial real estate. It talks mainly about the seemingly one deal the author has done which is this condo conversion that gets mentioned time and time again. It's more of a low quality biography of the authors 3 years of experience. I was hoping to get new ideas and different approaches to what I'm already practicing in the commercial real estate business myself. This didn't happen at all. I purchased this book based on the title "The Best Damn Commercial Real Estate Investing Book Ever Written" which sounds like it may be good, but turned out to be a big mistake on my part because it simply is not even close to being the best. There is just so much more to commercial real estate, being in that field myself, than what is talked about in this book.

I could go on and on about what I didn't like about this book, but I hope this is enough to warn others that there are several other quality books available that will educate you properly on the subject of commercial real estate investing, unfortunately this book is not one of them.

I own a midsize commercial real estate firm. I purchased several commercial real estate books to review and share with my employees. There are much better books regarding commercial real estate on the market. They must have needed to put Monica's picture on the cover and give it an outrageous title to sell this book. "The Best Damn Commercial Real Estate Investing Book EVER Written" has a total of 16 pages on the financial analysis. This chapter is titled "It's All About The Numbers" and yet she only gives this chapter 16 pages. She calls the GRM "useless". Yet I have found the GRM a great tool for analyzing an underperforming asset. The rest of the book is too general. I have a feeling as we begin to feel a bit of pressure in the commercial real estate industry she will wish she had stuck to cleaning teeth. Where do I return it for a full refund per her statement on the jacket?

I have read every Commercial Real Estate Book I could find. This one gets to the nuts and bolts right from the start.
I am energized to move on now from residential to commercial purchases.
There were a number of typos in the book and I would advise readers to go to her web site for a 5 page correction of pages 115-119 that is downloadable.

Save your money on this one and buy David Geltner's Commercial Real Estate Analysis and Investment book, instead. This is a book for the real estate novice who wants a simple introduction to real estate. No substance here, just an elementary primer on real estate investing. I have read hundreds of real estate books in the past 25 years, and this one would appear at the bottom of my list for recommended reading.

The book was interesting, but had little in depth information. She wrote of how she took an apartment building condo, but focused mostly on how she smoozed the city commission rather than explaining the steps or pitfalls.

You can discern her personal drive, and that can carry a real estate investor a long way. I call it "3 yards and a cloud of dust." Sometimes you just have to push ahead regardless of the problems. Been there, done it, got the T shirt.

I think a little more concering the differences between residential and commercial real estate would have better served the reader. There is so much more to commercial real estate than contained in this book. Add it to your list, but don't buy it first, unless you have extra money to spend.

A friend gave me this book to read. Now that I think of it, he probably just wanted to get rid of it.

At best, it's a cursory review of trivial commercial real estate investment strategies--none of which are particularly creative or new. At worst, it's a fashion magazine with a somewhat attractive cover girl. Sorry. Big thumbs down.

Not everyone is meant to be an author.

Before I started the book, I thought the title was catchy, but the picture of the blonde chick on the cover had me doubting that this would be the "best damn commercial real estate investing book ever written". I know... it's a stereotype. Surprisingly, it turned out to be the best book I've read on commercial. Monica hits on a bunch of topics that would be lessons learned the hard way if you didn't read this book.

I also really enjoyed her writing style. I don't know how to describe it, other than "ballsy". ...again, something I wasn't expecting from a blonde chick. ;-)

I strongly recommend this book!

I've never seen a book more full of typos. Simply incredible. Why didn't she just get someone to proof it in all its banal simplicity? I believe most, if not all the positive reviews of it here on Amazon are fake, but of course can't prove this. Written during the boom times of a few years ago, I wonder where the author is now.

I also took her seminar and she was woefully uninformed. The only really thing good about it was looking at her as she is really cute and looked good in tight pants. A waste of time and money.