Good books/sites on real estate market analysis?

Question

I am looking for a good book on analyzing markets prior to entering them, but the only one I've found is from 2001:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0874208688/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-2402159-5392948?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

Does anyone have a more up-to-date book, or is this the book to buy?

Also, which sites do you guys recommend to analyze and select commercial markets in different areas of the country? Any free ones would be very much appreciated :)

-Jonathan

N/A N/A · Answer

Hi,

It somewhat depends on what you're wanting to accomplish. If it's just to run analysis to figure what's the best market for investing in apartments, that's one thing. If you're looking to analyze the best opportunities for doing commercial investing, that's another.

Some of this will depend on what you want to do, but your sources of capital and your credit might also come into play. It's better to go with a moderate sized loan, like $3-10MM rathern than a small one under that price. This way, you can let the property do the qualifying, since they won't be looking to you to write a check if things don't go exactly right. They just primarily want to know that the property will have enough cash flow to support the operating expenses, debt service, and leave room for profit for the owner.