Apartments: Invest or not to invest that is the question

With the residential real estate debacle, comes the commercial free fall. A great opportunity also exists in the commercial market, with refinancing not working and more and more properties becoming abandoned by owners that simply can't deal with them any longer.

The LA Times had a great article on getting into this arena.

Some of the points I really appreciated were:
- Having plenty in reserves
- really ge to know the area
- understand the problem with the property as to why it is not currently profitable
- do your own homework
- see if the property is up to current code.
I comented on that:

Thanks so much for this article.
I appreciate the insight on making sure the property is up to code. That applies to all areas of real estate. With any properties that violate codes the city/county may view it as a dangerous building and look upon it with even more scrutiny. That can increase your repair amounts by a large margin and can even put a halt to work while the necessary permits are pulled.
Not a happy thing.

I would advise to start with apartments that are owned by mom and pop owners. You can get some nice deals here and work out owner finanicing as I have done. It's just a step above residential, and many of your current techniques work in this lower range of commerical properties.

Thanks

Dennis
Real Estate Investing A-Z