Mastering the Art of Commercial Real Estate Investing: How to Successfully Build Wealth and Grow Passive Income from Your Rental Properties Paperback – December 18, 2018

I have been in CRE for 14 years. I have read a lot of CRE books and Doug’s book is in my top 3. Easy to read and focuses on the fundamentals without getting overly complex. I read so many books that get wayyy too far into the weeds. This is a book that I am going to gift to many people.

The title says it all. I read this book almost 2 years ago along with a number of other books on commercial real estate. Of all the books I read, this was the most helpful. Many of the ones I bought ended up being “rah rah” books that read like a motivational speaker was talking to you. A few were text books that went into lots of details about structuring deal terms or financial metrics. All of those were helpful in some ways, but not nearly as much as this one.What I found most helpful about this book was it covered the main phases of commercial real estate: buying, financing, managing, and selling. It did so using numbers and examples that took the conversation to a deeper level than most of the other books I read but not so much information that I got bogged down in the details. For example, I recently found my first commercial property that I wanted buy. Of all my real estate books, Doug’s was the one I picked back up to review before beginning the buying process.

The book leaves a lot of questions and could use more real world examples. However it is a good book for getting initial information on the subject.

Mr. Marshall does an outstanding job sharing ideas I've not found in other books.Examples:1. Be aware of and cautious of loan covenants. (I'll let you read the book to find out what they are)2. While it seems like everyone, or at least a lot of investors focus on interest rates and fixing and flipping for a quick buck, those who want to hold for cash flow must give serious consideration to property management. There are some good tips for finding a good property manager and management company. One big tip Mr. Marshall points out is that property management companies may hire their own in-house employees to do maintenance work that should be outsourced. This brings to mind the need for an investor to find a good forensic accountant to keep an eye on the property management company.3. "You Get What You Inspect, Not What You Expect" - This is the author's most important lesson learned when he was a property manager.4. Sometimes property management companies are more concerned with keeping the property occupied than maximizing revenue. Increased vacancy requires more effort than they want to expend. In their mind, it's just easier keeping the property full, which leads to:5. If your property is consistently full, especially in a market that averages 5 percent or more vacancy, your rents are too low.6. As capitalization rates decline, loan sizes are increasingly constrained by the lender's debt service coverage ratio instead of their loan-to-value (LTV).This is just a small sample of the many paragraphs that I highlighted in the book.I do not hesitate to recommend this book to any investor interested in learning more about commercial real estate and how financing works for these types of investments.

I loved Doug Marshall's writing style. This book is well written, to the point with no-nonsense. No beating around the bush. He instructs with an easy way to understand the ins and outs of real estate investing from buying, financing, managing and selling.What I especially enjoyed about the book is that he gives advice on just being a good business person and principals to live a successful life in general. He shares his favorite business books and sentimental stories of what he learned from his parents that made him a successful person today.I really enjoyed this book as I, myself continue to learn about my future in real estate investing.

Not breakthrough stuff here and could be a little more practice with the guidance.

I have read so many books on multifamily investing and it was so nice to read one that was not just a bunch of hype. I have invested in quite a few SFR, but want to move to multifamily apartment. This will help me move to the next level. So many of the books I have read are not really that practical or detailed. You can tell from Doug's writing that he is wise and trying to help us not make the same mistakes he has made. I can tell he has a CCIM designation, because of the depth his knowledge and understanding of understanding what it takes to be successful in multifamily investing.

Written by a commercial mortgage broker with experience in the industry, the book gives the reader a basic introduction to commercial real estate, the decision matrices as well as the steps in the lifecycle from pre-purchase through sale or exchange. A good introduction to commercial real estate investing.