Читать книгу Commercial Real Estate Investing For Dummies - Peter Harris - Страница 21

Is commercial real estate risky? You bet it is. One of our mentors always said, “Anything you go after of great worth has great risk.” Commercial real estate investing involves big dollars and lots of people. And whenever you have lots of money and people working together closely, trouble is right around the corner. But risk is a facet of doing business — any business. You can’t avoid it. The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to understand all the risks that are possible, and then get your advisors involved to help you figure out how to avoid them. Don’t skimp on getting the best advisors you can hire either. As the saying goes, “It’s expensive being cheap.”

But here’s the good news: Risks can be managed to levels of great certainty. Being successful in commercial real estate nearly always means taking calculated risks. Are you willing to risk some of your time and money to be financially free? What if you could secure your family’s financial future? There are risks with everything you do in life. You may have heard of people who spend their whole lives trying to avoid taking any risks, and in the process, they accomplish nothing. What a shame. The point is that sooner or later you’ll probably have to step out of your comfort zone to free yourself from the rat race.

If you like to err on the side of caution, you may want to start out with a smaller multifamily building. Or maybe you want to roll the dice big time. In this case, check out Chapter 16 for more on land development, which can satisfy the riskiest adventurer.

One of the risks of real estate investing is that if you aren’t careful, the property can fail. We include a whole chapter in this book (Chapter 14) on why properties fail, because real estate investing and the decisions we make don’t always turn out well. Sometimes you just make a bad deal. And sometimes you may hire the wrong property management company. And other times the market may take a turn for the worse and send you in a downward spiral. Chapter 14 may be the most important chapter you read because understanding why properties fail can enable you to spot where your property needs some help. Or, if you’re looking at a deal, knowing why properties fail helps you analyze why the property is in its current condition. And don’t forget that understanding why properties fail can put you in a great negotiating position and assist you in solving property problems.