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 Not a bunch of fluff like other real estate books, but hardcore financial analysis , January 15, 2007Reviewer: Keith Lundy This is book that has taught me a great deal about evaluating my investments through reading and understanding financial statements. This is one of the only books that I know of that takes such a mathematical approach. Numbers don't lie. Evaluating financial statements is one area that neophyte investors attempt to ignore, and often with dire results. This book will make reading financial statements seem less of a chore and more of a powerful investing tool. Learn some math for your business, November 10, 2006Reviewer: Jim Huntz "Gamer Man" This is an essential component to any real estate investor and I'll tell you why. Frank teaches you the math, so you can setup metrics on how well your investments are doing, otherwise, you're doing this blind. A good buy. Also a good combination for this book: Investing Without Losing (ISBN 0978834607 NOT on amazn, other stores) Eliminates the Guesswork, October 9, 2006Reviewer: Darin Searcy "Searcy Property Management, LLC" This book provides an essential foundation for real estate analysis and investing. It is true that this book may challenge those who aren't familiar with reading financial statements. But, don't let that disourage you. Be patient and do your best to understand how financials work. Understanding financial statements is a vital skill for any business owner - and a real estate investor is a business owner. Many real estate books focus on motivation and "creative" financing techniques. There is a place for that kind of book but this book does not contain that kind of material. You'll learn that you are not buying a house or building. You are buying an income stream. Understanding the four sources of that income stream and how the stream flows is essential to gaining the most from your investments. Removing the emotion from an investment decision and understanding the numbers will ultimately lead to clearer picture and better real estate deals. I highly recommend this book as a foundation to your real estate education.  NOT for the beginner, September 14, 2006Reviewer: NativeCJ selected this book based on the awesome reviews. It sounded like everything I needed to know about real estate investing, in a simplistic format. Within a few chapters, I found the book to be very condescending (i.e.; Basically....if you're too stupid to understand this calculation, real estate investing is not for you). Since I am a beginner and not a math major, I did not expect to whizz right through all of the calculations. But I also did not expect a negative tone with no support that made me not want to read it further. So, I bought REAL ESTATE INVESTING FOR DUMMIES. I found it significantly more helpful. It does point out warnings and says that if you're not comfortable with possible negative cash flow, then maybe real estate investing is not right for you at this time. It also weighed the stability of real estate investing in comparison to stocks. I found the Dummies book much better suited to the beginner while detailing pros and cons, instead of being a pain to read. Great technical read- good "holistic" view of RE measures, August 31, 2006Reviewer: J. LAROSA Cuts through the fluff; gives you the "holistic" view of a real estate investment by illustrating every measure. The reality is there's no single "magic bullet" way to measure whether a property is a good deal or not; this book makes this point while teaching all the various measures, at all phases of ownership (including selling or "exit strategy", which most novice investors don't usually consider when they're just getting started). I used it to help me measure whether some multifamily properties I am purchasing are good investments. I also used the online reference formulas... they do a good job of supplementing the material. I would suggest reading a few other books on general RE investing in addition to this to get a well rounded education on the matter.  Lukewarm review for "What every real estate . . . .", August 27, 2006Reviewer: book worm "book worm" I purchased this book hoping it would give simple and clear explanations about important real life, real estate calculations which every investor needs to understand. After receiving and reading/working through some of the calculations, my assessment is that the author does a decent job explaining some basics. However, I also found that he frequently skips critical relevant details when actually it comes to using these calculations in real life. Another observation is that when push came to shove and I looked to the book to explain important specifics, the book did not deliver. Instead I found that the author refered the reader to his website or other products he sells. I applaud the author's entrepreneur-ship, but was disappointed by this purchase. What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know about Cash Flow... And 36 Other Key Financial Measures, August 3, 2006Reviewer: V. Liew This is a MUST READ book if you are serious about getting into Real Estate Investment. Easy to understand, very basic. Taking the mystery out of real estate valuation, July 8, 2006Reviewer: Virginia B. Youngblood Excellent Book. It does require a little bit of study to master the concepts. I am math challenged, but I could understand the points being made. A little bonus which helped me were the spreadsheets which had thoughtfully been made available. I don't understand Excel very well, either, but I did grasp the concepts. If a real estate investor is really interested in wringing the very last penney of profit out of their investment, they might carefully consider the advantages of the book. I have recommended it to quite a few math challenged people because the book explained the process and provided questions to review the concept being presented. Discovering Fire, June 12, 2006Reviewer: G. Duffield Ever wonder how our early ancestors (or my mother in law) must have felt when they first discovered the use of fire, or the wheel, or the ginsu knife? I have been involved in real estate development for several years and have never been introduced to a more thorough, straight-forward, simple to understand reference text than this one. I keep it with me and consult it on a regular basis. It is a wonderful resource for the first timer investor or a seasoned professional. Well worth the cost at any price!  Pretty dense... didn't hold my attention, April 11, 2006Reviewer: Shane A. Brewer "What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cashflow" is a mostly mathematical book dedicated to all of the different ways to analyze real estate investment deals. The book also includes a web site that provides access to web based and Excel based formulas to calculate all of the different formulas discussed. While the information in this book is very important to the investor, I found this book very hard to read. The book seems like it was written by a mathematician, loaded with facts and examples and with little regard to writing style or holding the readers attention. The first part of the book seemed to be completely useless, as the material was presented again in the second part of the book. The second part of the book was by far the most useful, but again the writing was very dense and didn't hold my attention at all. Thus if you are very interested in real estate mathematics, pick this book up. Otherwise you would be better off picking up another book. 2 out of 5 stars.  Very Useful Information, March 28, 2006Reviewer: Jeffrie A. De Coux "DeCoux4U.com" As a Realtor in the Raleigh North Carolina area, I have found this book to be very useful in not only our own personal real estate investing, but also with helping other real estate investors buy and sell property. Finance 101 covered in a single book, March 20, 2006Reviewer: Ann Sharp "RealEstateNewbie" Everything I learned in my first Finance class in my MBA program is covered in this book. It has examples for you try out on your own to test your understanding - IRR, NPV, etc calculations with real estate examples. This book is an invaluable tool for anyone deciding to invest in real estate! I highly recommend it! Good for Real Estate Investors, September 12, 2005Reviewer: William Penn "www.TucsnLandMan.com" This is a very useful book with many good concepts and formulae for various real estate calculations for commercial/ business properties. I gave it a 4 star rating only because it does not have an index, which would have been very useful. Not what I expected, September 6, 2005Reviewer: J. Richards I saw a lot of good reviews, so I picked up this book and it's not exactly what I expected. The book only has about 89 pages of information and the second part of the book is math formulas. The book covers these formulas and then they post excel sheets and there's a calculator on their web site that does the calculations for you, so most of the reading is a waste of my time. Also the majority of examples are for people who want to own office buildings or apartments and not single family homes. The one positive thing I can say about this book is that it gets you to think and you can have a more accurate picture about how much something is goign to cost you before you buy it and what you can expect and a lot of good rule of thumbs So you think you know real estate math?, September 5, 2005Reviewer: Anthony Davidson I recently asked a potential joint venture partner to send me some profit projections. What I got was an eye opener. My prospective partner was clueless about rates of return, generally accepted accounting terminology, and real estate calculations in general. Her seven year projection spoke of: "Money Partner ROI" (180%), "Average Yearly ROI" (25.8%) and "Average Yearly Compounded ROI" (15.9%). How the first two were computed (or what they meant) were impossible to ascertain. Apparently they were returns without compounding. The third was an unsuccessful attempt to compute the Internal Rate of Return (the correct calculation was 17.3%). IRR, the industry standard and the means professional investors use to compare alternative investments, was unknown to this mathematically-challenged young lady. If, like my prospective partner, you feel your grip on the mathematics of real estate investing is a little shaky, then this is the book for you. The first half of the book is an unusually clear and up-to-date discussion of the gathering and use of data needed to make investment decisions--plus a running commentary, sometimes humorous, on real estate investing in general. This section alone is worth the price of the book. But wait, there's more! The second half lays out most of the mathematical tools needed to invest in real estate. Each short chapter covers one topic with definitions and examples offered in clear, jargon-free prose. Topics include: Internal Rates of Return, Net Operating Income, Gross Rent Multiplier, Net Present Value, discounted cash flow, calculating taxable income and much more. Plus, there's a nice bonus. The book directs you to their free website where calculators for many of the more complicated transactions are available. I recently used the website's IRR calculator to compute the return of seven years worth of annual cash flows plus the sales proceeds from reversion. Elapsed time: under one minute. Oh yeah, I recently purchased a second copy of the book for my mathematically-challenged woman friend. Hey, she understands real estate--she just can't do the math! What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow...And 36 Other Key FInancial Measures: Guidelines, Formulas, and R, August 22, 2005Reviewer: A. Haag This book re-inforces the "rules of thumb" that we all hear as Real Estate Investors plus gives you some new calculations to support them. A good book to have on the shelf. Real Estate Math Made Easy, August 10, 2005Reviewer: Todd A. Adams I highly recommend this book for anyone thinking about getting started in Real Estate. It is very easy to read and understand. There are sufficient examples to highlight the ideas, without overwhelming the reader. The style is conversational without getting cute. After reading this book, I was able to figure what was wrong with my rental property and what I needed to do to fix it. Buy it today. A Must for Every Serious Real Estate Investor, July 28, 2005Reviewer: Frederick R. Selinka If you are serious about investing in real estate, on any scale, this book is a must read. Frank Gallinelli's approach allows you to crunch the numbers and know if the investment property is going to pay off BEFORE you put out dime one. Frank explains the reasons behind the formula so you will know why the calculation is necessary. Required Reading. Fantastic Book, July 18, 2005Reviewer: Michael F. Swanick This book is the best real estate book out there beyond a doubt in my view. Frank doesn't try to convince you that you can buy loads of real estate "with no money down". There is no trickery. It's not that type of book. Instead, it is very pratical and educational. I've been trying to determine how to evaluate alternative investments for a while. These include investing in the stock market and real estate. Frank does a great job [builing from the simply to the complex] explaining how one should look at investing in real estate. He even explains complicated financial measurements [like IRR] in a simply and easy to understand way. He includes real life examples and provides outstanding tools on his web page that one can access and use. The book is easy to read and can be used a a reference guide as it is full of tables and charts related to settlement sheets, mortgage tables, etc. From my perspective, this book gave me the confidence to pursue real estate invesments by enabling me to quantitatively determine whether a acquisition was a financially good deal. Awesome!, July 3, 2005Reviewer: Mark Yoffe "Commmercial Mortgage Broker yoffem@hotmail.com" (New York, NY United States) This is a one-of-a-kind, very basic, but critically important book on real estate investing - especially commercial real estate investing. I use this little book instead of having to wade through three or four larger real estate books to find important definitions, formulas, and equations. It's worth the money and a lot more! Frank Gallinelli takes you from ground zero to infinity>, April 12, 2005Reviewer: Thomas D. Auito "The Consumers advocate" (Florida, Alaska and the Web) As a duel licensed real estate agent, appraisal certified 15 year real estate investor and real estate website operator, I can honestly say that I have never seen anyone that gives you the nuts, bolts and tools of mathematical computation and analysis like MR. Gallinelli. Of the hundreds of real estate books that line my shelves, Franks book here has a place above my desk that is within arms reach, this book doesn't collect any dust! I can't stand books that leave you with some off the wall idea that only the author has figured out how to use, those are worthless, Frank takes you by the hand and knocks the fear of math right out of your head and gives you a monstrous calculator data base at no charge to actually DO the math while you're reading along. I'm going to have to give up a little secret here too, Frank is reachable, you can actually get in touch with this man when you have a question. He also teaches in his spare time at Columbia University to keep his skills sharp while giving back to his community in more ways than most. I'm a stickler for ethical treatment of the consumers in real estate and without going into the details of Franks mathematical formulas, models, presentations, examples, hints and rules of thumb, I will say that for less than $20 your are getting what many boot camp promoters charge thousands for. This is a full blown investment course that gives you the ability to accurately project forecasts that directly impact the bottom line, I may be a little biased as Frank can be found at my site www.magicbullets.com but I'm not exaggerating when I say Frank Gallinelli is the best in the business and I have never seen anything better than what Frank is offering you here! Dan Auito of www.magicbullets.com Complete lack of fluff!, March 5, 2005Reviewer: Joseph P. Milligan "Space Cadet" (Virginia, USA) One of the most annoying things I find about real estate investment books is that most of them can be condensed to about 30 pages. The other 170 pages usually try to sell you on the idea of getting into real estate in the first place, and offer plenty of examples that don't have anything to do with anything. This is 252 pages of pure information. There are examples, of course, but they relate directly to the concepts he's working with and illustrate them clearly. It's heavy on math, but that's why I bought it. I'm a math person and have been jonesing for something like this book for a long time. It's not difficult - all the calculations are high-school algebra at their most complex- but if you're not a math person, as stated, he gives out free spreadsheets that do them for you. Also as stated, if you have a finance degree this book isn't for you. If you're like me, and want to know what to do with the numbers, then this book is a must. great book, December 29, 2004Reviewer: Nirav Desai "niravmd" (san diego, CA United States) at some point, every investor needs this information. figuring out whether something is a good investment or not basically boils down to Return on investment. also figuring out when to sell is important. (basically when the Internal Rate of Return decreases). must read! Problem, December 28, 2004Reviewer: B. Collingsworth (Nebraska) There is a lot of good criticism here. So, I will only add that the next printing should include an index, and possibly a glossary of terms. Only then will it be a truly useful reference work. Finance 101, December 25, 2004Reviewer: Thirst4KnowHow "G" (Boston, MA) If you have no background in finance, then you may find this book useful. There are really only a handful of formulas that you can use here and they're built right into Excel. The examples are basic. A guide to all your unanswered finance questions., December 25, 2004Reviewer: Joseph Tron "Joseph" (Florida) The book is truely an informative read. It answers all those subtle questions that Finance text books neglect to cover, but somehow you know the answers are out there. In clear and precise language financial concepts are explained with full clarity. Crunching the numbers is an essential exercise in the due diligence process of investing. Every investor and potential investor should read this book. I praise Mr. Gallinelli for this excellent book and look forward to other books yet to be written. Read Tirone's Real Estate Problem Solving books if you want , October 18, 2004Reviewer: terry (chicago) read Tirone's Professional Real Estate Problem Solving books if you want clinical/mathematical accuracy in each and every example the author gives in his books. The books cover a multitude of real estate calculations, some of them "hairy", some pace-setting to the field in appraisal computations for income capitalization and annuities. Tirone's books are second to nothing in the field where accuracy, utility and value are concerned. Nothing can compete with them. I purchased the Gallinelli book maybe 2 months ago. I like it, but it is surely lacking when compared for real estate computations to the Tirone books. The errors in Gallinelli are inexcusable. How can one author, take Tirone, for example, give the customer 100% accuracy while Gallinelli's book mas many errors in it? It is all in the proofing of the book, attention to detail, attention to and respect for the customer, which is where Tirone's works excel. Gallinelli is worth the expense by a "hair". I'd buy Tirone first and then get the Gallinelli book. Combine both and you have a very good package. And, if you have any questions Mr. Tirone supports his books, no charge. call him and he will help, as he did with me! Inexcusable errors found in several pages, September 21, 2004Reviewer: Anibal Gonzalez I bought this book less than two weeks ago but I'm sending it back to amazon.com because of errors found in the text. The book contains errors in real estate math calculations. Visit the book's website at realdata.com/book and click on the "Errata" link for the listing of the errors. The Investors Bible, July 16, 2004Reviewer: Garrett FitzGerald II (Laurel, MD United States) Everyone wants to retire on real estate but no one shows you how to, today. Frank G does; he shows you what to look for when evaluating a prospective property and what financial analysis to do to see if it will even produce enough income to carry itself. Franks book is a great start and will give you all the basics to develop a cash flow from real property for your entire life. You need to buy this book to be successful investing in real estate. Finally a helpful real estate finance book!, July 16, 2004Reviewer: Rob (Chicago) This book gives the facts about real estate finance in an easy to read format. Unlike most real estate books, this one does not claim to make you $1,000,000 in 2 weeks with your eyes closed. It gives the common investor the tools and perspective to make wise real estate investment decisions. Good for beginners or seasoned vets who want to brush up on their skills. Required Reading for Real Estate Investors, April 23, 2004Reviewer: Rosalind Resnick (New York NY) Before you invest $1 into income-producing real estate, be sure to pick up a copy of Frank Gallinelli's excellent book, What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow...And 36 Other Key Financial Measures: Guidelines, Formulas, and Rules of Thumb for Making Money in Real Estate. While the title may sound somewhat forbidding, the book is so well-written and accessible that even novice investors who wouldn't know a cap rate from a rate of return can quickly and easily master key concepts such as present value, gross scheduled income and discounted cash flow. Better yet, Gallinelli offers free spreadsheets that you can download from his site that do the numbers-crunching for you. I like to think that I'm a pretty savvy investor, but, thanks to Frank and his amazing formulas, I narrowly avoided overpaying for a five-story office building in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. While there's no guarantee that the seller will accept my lower offer, I feel confident that, if I do get the deal, I will be paying a fair price now that Frank has taught me how to do the math. Outstanding detail with a straightforward explanation., February 23, 2004Reviewer: Shane A. Newell (Albany, NY) This book is the best read for understanding financial analysis. It is not often, if ever achieved, that a subject as complex as financial analysis can be explained so perfectly suited for real estate professionals. The work doesn?t lose itself in silly analysis or ?paralysis of analysis?, Gallinelli?s approach is straightforward, sometimes hard hitting as a practical sense guide to investing in real estate. This doesn?t mean the work is simplistic by any measure, you can spend plenty of time taking this work into great depth. Gallinelli offers a web page support system with free worksheet downloads, financial software and valuable resource links. Every deal I consider is now held to a new financial standard. This is a must own book for investors, brokers and corporate real estate professionals. Excellent Investment Companion, February 20, 2004Reviewer: ronw1 (North York, Ontario Canada) This book focuses on analyzing Real Estate Investment from a financial calculation perspective. It is very well written, very easy to understand, and extremely useful. In a very short time, you will quickly learn the 37 calculations that a sophisticated Real Estate Investor uses to evaluate whether a deal makes financial sense. By knowing the numbers better, you'll have an edge in negotiating your next real estate deal. Highly Recommend! The book is as good as the software---GREAT!!!!!, January 22, 2004Reviewer: Michael Blacker, JD, LLM, CCIM, SRS (Dallas, TX United States) Initially when I began to read the book, I thought it was going to be a well written work that might be useful to me. Well, it is cetainly much more than that. Physicians have their chief referance book called the Physicians Desk Referance,(PDR), and Attorneys have various desk references which are used in their specialties. Now real estate investors have a wondefully written "desk book" that is suitable for the novice through the most highly qualified professional. All students of real investing should have this book. It will be perfect for beginners as well as "old-timers" who have been around. The presentation is extremely easy to read and is precise and accurate. The 37 calculations, explained in detail, are absolutely the calculations you have either already used or will need to perform -- at times on a moment's notice. There are also discussions and examples of much of the material found in the real estate analysis software published by realdata.com. If you are in a rush and don't like to waste time thumbing through volumes of vague examples and poorly written explanations you will absolutely appreciate this book. I wholeheartedly echo the comments written by David A. Taylor whose thorough analysis is "Right On." Keep the book handy on your desk The Definitive Guide, January 21, 2004Reviewer: David A. Taylor (San Mateo, CA USA) I recently decided to look into investing in residential real estate, but I didn't know enough about the financial risks and rewards to determine whether this would make sense for me. So I decided to give myself a quick education by reading the best books I could find on the subject. I had to wade through a lot of get-rich-quick-without-any-money books to find the good ones, but I wound up with ten books that looked like they had good, solid information for would-be investors. After working my way through all ten books, I can tell you without reservation that Gallinelli's book is head and shoulders above the rest. There was something to be learned from each them, of course, but the others tended to get a bit fuzzy about the financial details, often substituting simplistic rules of thumb for real analysis or doing a hand wave just about the time I needed hard information. Worse, there was a disturbing lack of consistency among the books where they did provide financial details, and there was no obvious way to sort out which book had the right take on a particular calculation or financial ratio. And it seems to me that, important as general principles may be, if the financials don't work then nothing else matters very much. Fortunately, Gallinelli took me right down into the nitty gritty stuff and showed me, step by step, just how the whole business works. He was also the only author to even consider the possibility that I, as a modern-day investor, might have the ability to run these calculations in a spreadsheet, and he provides clear instructions for entering the required formulas in Excel. Not that you have to be an Excel user to benefit from this book; the financial analyses he describes are absolutely essential to knowing what you're getting into, and you need to run them whether you do it on a calculator, use packaged financial analysis software, or build your own spreadshet. But for those who do know how to use Excel, it's a tremendous benefit to have the step-by-step instructions right there.
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