When Rob Beardsley, founder of Lone Star Capital, began his real estate investing career, he was struggling to teach himself the basics of the business while studying computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. Rob was surprised to discover that there weren’t any books written about a hands-on approach to analyzing multifamily real estate investments. While there were books with plenty of financial theory, there was nothing out there sharing insights about the strategies of hunting and analyzing for deals day in and day out. Once he realized this, Beardsley became intent on filling that void.
As Rob became a veteran in the real estate private equity space, acquiring nearly $150MM of multifamily property, he decided to give back to the community by writing a book explaining this valuable and underreported topic, acquisition underwriting. Underwriting is the financial analysis of a prospective investment that usually leads an investor’s or investment firm’s decision-making process about whether to pursue a certain opportunity as well as how to structure the deal. The Definitive Guide to Underwriting Multifamily Acquisitions by Rob Beardsley brilliantly walks the reader through this process step by step.
Through his book, Rob hopes to level the playing field for those who are looking to learn or participate in multifamily acquisitions. Among many topics, the book simply explains the most important multifamily financial principles. Further, the definitive guide highlights the math and equations associated with investing in real estate. Not only does Rob’s book discuss how to gather the information needed for underwriting, but it also goes into detail on how numbers can sometimes be manipulated and are therefore misleading. Additionally, he includes insight on the pros and cons of varied partnership structures and how each can create alignment of interest between limited partners (LPs) and general partners (GPs). Moreover, Rob dives into the most complex faucets of underwriting and gives readers concrete guidance on how to evaluate the risk.
Rob’s rule of thumb when it comes to writing is to make sure that information is succinct and that readers are left with a straightforward approach to underwriting multifamily properties. The Definitive Guide to Underwriting Multifamily Acquisitions is the perfect guide for practitioners in all aspects of real estate. As a further testament to his book’s success, it has amassed 4.6 stars on Amazon.com and over 130 positive reviews. To learn more or purchase Rob’s book, visit here.
Speaking to his overall mission of educating and helping the public, Rob publishes and maintains an updated underwriting financial model available for free on the Lone Star Capital website. You can download the model here. This is the exact same spreadsheet that Rob’s company uses to evaluate over $10 billion potential investments every year and will be valuable to anyone looking to get in the industry.