Event Venue.

[Matthew Joyner]

Hello bigger pockets! My wife and I were presented a property by our REA and could really use some professional advice about the options for us to acquire the property, here's the skinny: We want to open a wedding/event venue. The property is in a residential area on a 3 acre lot. My wife is very vested into the world of weddings in our area, rubs elbows with the biggest names and has created a very successful, well known photography business. We are confident that this could be a successful venture for us. So the home owner is selling the property for 675000, or is willing to rent it to us for 3500 a mo. He is a full time investor, but hasn't had luck selling for his public price of 799,999. The agent said this investor would potentially be interested in any sort of plan for that that we could bring him. He is willing to carry the paper (as he owns the property) but would expect more down, a lot more than we have on hand. Ideally we would love to own the lot, or at least structure the transaction so we can't be asked to leave. Our fears in renting it and hosting events is that we will be pushed out as soon as we make it profitable. Our income and credit would undoubtedly qualify us, however we only have about 5% to put down. So, we were hoping for any feed back or ideas, lease? Rent? Any creative finance tips? Special loans? Or other options we could present the seller that would work for both parties? I appreciate any time spent reading or responding, and I apologize if this is jumbled and rushed, as we are very anxious and excited, thank you. (More info, we have only had one investment property, a little flip. So other than the home we live in have no other assets to tie this too, also we are in California) thank you -Matt

[Jonna Weber]

Hi! My first thoughts would be 1) Are you permitted to use the property in that way?  2) have you run the numbers to see how many events you would need to host to make a profit? I have no idea what a venue like that would rent for. I am sure that you are probably ahead of the game on those fronts.  '

Related to financing, perhaps you could go at it by getting a business loan, and a seller carry back for most of the down payment?  I have heard that sometimes lenders like this, because the seller has some skin in the game as well.  They may not lend on the real estate, but I would give a Small Business Administration office a call just to see if that is an option.