INVESTING IN RETAIL PROPERTIES, 3RD EDITION

A comprehensive guide focuses on investing in commercial real estate.

This third edition of Rappaport’s manual notes that income-producing real estate comes in many forms: residential, office, storage facilities, industrial, and retail. He mentions an insight from Investing 101: Diversifying makes for a portfolio that can withstand the shocks of the financial markets. But his own long experience has been in just one of these real estate types: retail properties. His company has been investing in and representing commercial properties for decades, including brands like Arby’s, Chipotle, Panera Bread, Sephora, Shake Shack, and many others. In these pages, he takes interested readers and prospective financiers through every aspect of investing and cash-flow management, going into granular detail on things like depreciation, net absorption, and the intricacies of loans in both a bull and bear market. There are plenty of charts and a great blast of numbers and statistics—this is a consult-your-calculator, graduate-level, nuts-and-bolts seminar on the specifics of investing in and managing commercial properties like shopping centers. Rappaport’s decision to open his book with an autobiographical sketch may at first seem discordant with this fact-heavy approach, and it can sometimes be self-serving (although also touching, as when during a glowing tribute to his father, he writes simply: “He showed me the way but never told me where to go”). Yet it turns out to be a wise choice, a very effective introduction to a guide that ends up being remarkably readable for both investors and nonspecialists. Rappaport is a terrific storyteller, even when he’s crunching numbers. He smoothly brings this latest edition of his book up to date with references to Covid-19 and recent changes in the Federal Reserve’s finance rates. But ultimately, the wonkish, ethical author at the heart of it all will strike readers the most.

A consummately authoritative and valuable examination of retail investing.