Advice On Commercial Real Estate Purchase - 1st Time Owner

[Alexander Dombeck]

Hey Bigger Pockets community, I'm just starting out in Step 1 (get educated) on what I want to become a successful career in real estate investment.

I also currently run an e-commerce business that is currently completely online, but would benefit from having a brick & mortar storefront, and I had an idea that maybe using the investment capital I'm looking to allocate into real estate into a commercial property my business can operate out of until I decide to sell the property in or rent it out to another business.

I am obviously very naive when it comes to the complexity of any good real estate deal (especially commercial VS residential), but I'm hoping to spend as much time learning from everyone here who is on their journey as well.

My main concern with the idea of buying commercial to operate my business out of it that I might struggle to rent it out afterwards and that there may likely be depreciation in the commercial real estate market over the next 5 years.

I understand there is a lot of nuance depending on the local market but I'm guessing commercial is even less of a "safe" bet than finding a solid residential deal to leverage in some way. I am currently located in Daytona Beach and would prefer looking at property in this area, but for the right deal I would be willing to relocate. (Or maybe its just better to look at residential with the capital I have for my 1st entry into real estate )

Any advice is greatly appreciated <3

-Alex

[Jonathan Greene]

Look for mixed-use properties with a Main Street vibe or location. Mixed-use are retail and residential. Usually retail on the ground floor and residential up top. You can also double hack these if you have enough units and live in one unit and use one unit for your business, but of course that decreases your cash flow but increases your usability.

You can also use an FHA loan to get a mixed-use property with only 3.5% down if the residential square footage if more than 50% of the total square footage. It's one of the best hacks in the game.