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Review of Multifamily Millions by Dave Lindahl

March 26th, 2009 · 6 Comments

multifamily-millions-bookThis book by Dave Lindahl is about repositioning Apartment buildings. This is truly one of the better books on real estate investing that I have read. While its primary focus in multi-family buildings, it has tremendous value for single family home investors also. Dave Lindahl got his start renovating single family properties and doing small 3 unit multi-family properties.

What is Repositioning

For those unfamiliar with the commercial property business a repositioning would be the equivalent of rehabbing a single family home. Rehabbing a single family home is usually done on a vacant property.  When the property is complete it is sold to a homeowner or landlord. Repositioning is generally a more complex process. It can often be done with tenants in place. Usually some renovation is required but it is more than just renovation It is often also about upgrading the tenants, management and the Position of the property in the marketplace. (By the way one of the best books on Marketing is called Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind Repositioning apartment buildings is in part applying it’s concepts)

Multi-Family Millions is Full of Tips

This book is full of tips. My copy is full of yellow highlighted pages. Many of these tips apply to rental properties of any size. One example would be his suggestion to offer tenants to paint an accent wall for an extra $20 a month. Or how about this tip

Replace faucets. Do not be cheap here! Inexpensive faucets are a maintenance headache, and end up costing you more overall. Get ones that are distinctive and elegant. Here’s my rule: If the tenant has to touch it regularly, make it special.

The book has advice on finding deals, working with contractors, smart renovation tips, financing your deals, negotiating and much more.

Who is Dave Lindahl

Dave invests in apartment buildings around the country. He started small. His first rental was a  3 unit building in a depressed  area. He now has over 5,000 units, so he know what he is talking about.

Who Should Buy this Book

Anyone who wants to invest in apartment buildings would find this to be a wonderful book. Yet there is value to single family home landlords, and rehabbers. As I said above this is one of the better books I have read on real estate investing. In addition to really solid information it is well written, easy to read and easy to understand. Just as importantly it is not full of irrelevant fluff like so many investing books. I recommend this book highly. You can buy it from Amazon at a great price here. Multi-Family Millions: How Anyone Can Reposition Apartments for Big Profits

Happy reading,

Ned

Tags: Advanced tips · Beginner · Books · Landlording · real estate

6 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Carnival of Real Estate! — Arizona Real Estate Notebook // Apr 5, 2009 at 6:31 pm

    […] Ned Carey presents Review of “Multifamily Millions” by Dave Lindahl posted at Baltimore Real Estate Investing […]

  • 2 Pasadena Real Estate (5 comments.) // Apr 5, 2009 at 8:41 pm

    Ned,
    Congratulations on your mention as one of the top three post in the Carnival of Real Estate. I’ll have to check out the book.

  • 3 Ned // Apr 6, 2009 at 11:18 pm

    Thanks Doug,
    I was pretty happy with the review but I didn’t expect to be top three in the carnival of real estate.

  • 4 Sire (53 comments.) // Jun 3, 2009 at 4:01 am

    So, if I understand the process correctly, if the apartment requires a bit of maintenance the landlord approaches the tenant with a deal like, for x amount extra per week I will do the following?

    Sire´s last blog post..Blogger Invents Revolutionary Penile Extension

  • 5 Ned // Jun 9, 2009 at 6:25 pm

    Sire,

    Repositioning is about redoing the whole building. As leases renew you raise rents or replace tenants. However it is an excellent strategy when negotiating with new tenants to offer upgrades for $X more per month.

    Once a lease is in place it is the landlords responsibility to maintain the building.

    By the way welcome back and sorry for the slow reply.

  • 6 Sire (53 comments.) // Jun 10, 2009 at 2:17 am

    No worries Ned. It’s amazing how differently things are done in other countries. At least I think things are done differently here as I’ve never come across this topic before.

    As for the reply being late, it doesn’t really matter now that you’ve installed the ‘subscribe to comments’ plugin 😉

    Sire´s last blog post..FlexSqueeze And The Total Screen Recorder