Starting out: Commercial RE

[Yuuj V.]

Hello BP!

I've spent that last two years preparing, saving, reading and educating myself through BP and several books for that one moment, that moment of pure ecstasy, the  moment I closed on a rental property. My first one! ... And it felt like any other day. (Still haven't written a post about it, will soon).

I guess the rush wasn't there. Didn't feel like I accomplished much. 

Spent the next few months deciding on a move and I came to the idea of REIT's for supplemental income. Did my research, found a few sources and built up a portfolio of publicly traded REIT's with a small modest size of around $20K (and growing of course) producing div's.

Still didn't really solve the equation of wealth building or my 'fix', My motto is "Rentals and REIT's". I even went with 2 private REIT's with small positions just for fun. (More on that in a years time).

Now I'm at the point where I've been reading about CRE (Commercial Real Estate). I'm an overseas investor, I work outside of the U.S. as an expat. I could keep buying houses for the next few years, with 20% DP's. But I want to build a bigger empire, as ambitious as that sounds, as I'm sure everyone here on BP does.

Some of my biggest questions to BP members who have Commercial RE:

How did you start out?

What books do you recommend?

Is Crowdsourcing CRE viable or a waste of time?

Has it been worth it? 

I'm still going to continue on my path of REIT's and Rentals (SFr/MFHr), but CRE investing seems like it has a much bigger bang.

Interested in everyones thoughts!