Exploring Commercial Warehouse Space in San Joaquin Valley, California

[Alex Worrell]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Alex Worrell, and I am excited to join Bigger Pockets! I have been around real estate investing for about three years now but still feel like a newbie.

Quick backstory... I am a longtime Californian; I am 35 years old and have two boys under 3. I have had a full-time job as a recruiting manager at a staffing agency for the past 10 years. In 2021, during the pandemic, my family sold their business and land and decided to invest in multi-family units in the East Bay through a 1031 exchange, which turned out to be the best decision ever. This was kind of my first exposure to direct-to-seller marketing as we sent out thousands of mailers to various owners. Long story short, we closed on several properties through this strategy and now have a couple of single-family homes and a few multifamily apartment buildings. In parallel, since my wife was just laid off from her job, we started a property management company to handle the management of the 67 doors. However, we do this part-time and want to continue down this path to eventually do this full-time as we love doing it, and we have loved all the people in the industry we have met so far.

Recently, another local investor came to me and sold me on trying to do this full-time in the commercial/industrial warehouse space, which I found super intriguing. He has 10 years' experience as a CPA and underwriter, so he got me excited about the numbers behind it. We also partnered with two other buyers who invest in this space with very specific criteria, but we're eager to expand our network further.

We were looking to utilize the same game plan used for the multifamily units and go direct to seller but have found that the inventory level seems to be a lot less, and the sellers' motivations are slightly different.

As part of our long-term goal, we plan to sell a property next year and channel the proceeds into an industrial warehouse/flex property via another 1031 exchange in the San Joaquin Valley. We'd love to collaborate more with local investors in that space as we are still so new but feel we have the funds to close. 

This is definitely a long-term game plan, so just looking for any advice from anyone who has made the transition to industrial warehouse space and would love to connect with anyone who is local. Happy to pay for coffee/lunch. Or if you know of any local meetups in the area, that would be great. Looking forward to connecting and sharing insights.

Thank you, 

Alex Worrell