Here's a question that a reader posted the other day followed by my response.  After reading their question, try to come up with your own thoughts before reading my response and determine how you would have handled this situation.

Dear Scott,
There is a property that I am really interested in. I would like to take action to put it under contract. This will be my first deal.
How do you go about purchasing Multiple Properties?
example: This is a 5 House Package ( 5 Houses can be purchased for $8K)If I buy them all,I can get a bonus of a $245,000 uptown condo for $204,000. These condos are still under construction and the option was bought for $10,000. The five house package buyer gets this $51,000 value equity pack for free! Also, this is a "wholesale/assignment" deal that requires all cash. I would be dealing with another investor.

Full article… Deal or No Deal?

Technorati Tags: deal evaluation, financial analysis

Rather than just give you my analysis spreadsheets, my objective with this article is to show you how to develop your own.  It is critical that you learn how to do so if you are to succeed at real estate and I want to encourage you to begin "playing" with Excel as soon as possible.  This will be far more beneficial to you than giving a cursory glance to someone else's work because it is easy enough to understand.  Consider this a case of teaching you how to fish and feeding you for a lifetime rather than giving you a fish and feeding you for a day.

You see, chances are my spreadsheets would not even be suitable for you because I am likely using a different investment methodology.  Even if we are both using a similar technique there could be small differences based on our respective financing or some other aspect that means it doesn't quite fit.

But more important than any of that is this:

I have found that the greatest benefit of developing your own analysis spreadsheet is that you become intimately familiar with the numbers.  By the time you've developed it and used it a few times you understand the numbers inside out and upside down and have a thorough understanding of what numbers are most important and what effect certain adjustments will have.

Full article… Financial Analysis of the Deal: A Real Estate Investor's Most Important Skill?

Technorati Tags: deal analysis, deal evaluation, financial analysis, investing in real estate, real estate investing, risk management, risk reduction