ABSTRACT
At first sight, the subject of investment in property looks anything but complicated. However, such an attitude changes after a more thorough analysis of the issues related to this area. Recent books and publications on investment in property (real estate investment) are abundant, and certain topics appear in more than one text. As an example, we briefly list several typical topics that are related to investment in property and repeated in many texts, e.g. investment goals, comfort zone, real estate values and trends, location, land use regulations, investment options (apartment complexes, hotels, office buildings, shopping centres or industrial buildings etc.), microlevel investment analysis, macrolevel real estate investment issues (portfolio theory and institutional landscape etc.), measuring investment performance, management of investment processes, real estate development, risk appraisal techniques, valuation models, real estate transaction, buying techniques, negotiation, forms of ownership available to investors (partnership, corporate ownership, syndication, land trusts, limited partnerships), financing techniques (second mortgage, adjustable-rate mortgage, fixed-rate mortgage, reverse mortgage, balloon mortgage, assumable mortgage, leverage, creative financing techniques), financing strategies (how to be at the right time and at the right place etc.), tax benefits and foreclosure, etc. These issues are dealt with in this chapter.
