Louis Rukeyser says, "Every investor is a genius in an up market." This book will show you how to look like an investing genius in all sorts of markets. Despite recessions, over-building, high vacancy rates, the exorbitant cost of money and a host of other nullifying factors, you can still make money in commercial real estate. However, to do so, you must learn the rules. Know what to look for, what to avoid, what to buy, how to manage and when to sell. Although experience, intuition and having a plain old gut feeling about things are all important, making money in real estate has been reduced to a numbers game.

Throughout this book I am going to tell you about the numbers and formulas that make it all work. You shouldn’t take this advice in hopes of becoming wealthy overnight. Instead, look toward becoming an investor with more knowledge than you had before. This is not a book on fast-flipping, which is buying a property at far less than market value and selling it soon thereafter for a huge profit.

After over thirty years in commercial and investment property as a real estate and business broker, appraiser, financial analyst and business owner, I cannot recall the number of times that I have seen a property or business sold to some unwise soul who in the examination and analysis process asked all the wrong questions. The significant life and death elements were overlooked, while easily rectifiable and unimportant aspects were given too much attention. Far too often investors say, "I know what I’m doing and nobody, particularly some know-it-all appraiser, will ever tell me anything I do not already know or that I am wrong." Unfortunately for them, the streets of our cities are littered with the whitened bones of those who thought they were investing masterminds, only to discover differently.

Many investors, and you undoubtedly know some, will tell you that the only strategy required to become rich is the desire to make money. It’s hard to fight the concept; investors hear it every day. However, this is not a strategy. It is a hope and a desire.

The popular how-to approaches, weekend seminars and mail order crash courses will tell you that anyone can get rich by investing in real estate. The door to the vault is open to anyone with a brighter idea than his/her neighbors. It’s like so many franchises. Pour the secret ingredient from the secret recipe onto this or that and out pops instant success. In truth, many of these authors and seminar dispensers make more money selling books and seminars than they do investing in real estate.

I’ll give you their secrets to success. They all say the same thing: Borrow the maximum. Get rich using the other fellow’s money. Only buy properties that need improvement. Only buy properties that are sure to increase in value. Keep selling at a profit and keep re-investing. Develop and work your investment pyramid. These aren’t ridiculous ideas, but they are just about as helpful as the stock analyst who tells you that to make money on Wall Street you need to buy low and sell high. Now tell me how!

Sorry, there are no get-rich-quick schemes in the following text. Although this book will talk about the many ways to make money in real estate, it is all about making money the old-fashioned way, earning it. This book will cover constructive planning, analysis, making comparisons, establishing what makes the market tick, understanding why one property is better than another one, breaking a goal down into steps and then making those steps simple and efficient so that they can be feasibly implemented.

As you go through the next several pages, please bear in mind that I could have said much more about many of the topics addressed. If every aspect of every subject were covered to its fullest degree, you would require a truck to haul home all of the paper. All that I can do is hit the high spots, then introduce both the positive and negative characteristics of investing in ICI (industrial-commercial-investment) real estate.

A wise seer once said that if a writer borrows or steals from another writer, that is plagiarism, but if he borrows from many, it is research. To all of those whom I "researched", I thank you. These are the thousands of writers, academics and practitioners who have in any way contributed to the science of real estate brokerage and business appraisal. I am particularly grateful to my wonderful wife, Sheila, who has tolerated having my face stuck to the monitor of a computer for many months.

I always loved the music of Isaac Stern. Before commencing a concert, he would turn to the audience and simply say, “Enjoy.” May I say the same to you?

Lloyd R. Manning

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