First Commercial Property for a residential house flipper!

First Commercial Property for a residential house flipper!

Investor · Raleigh, NC · Member since 2020 · 24 posts · 5 votes

Hi everyone, 

As the title states I've been doing residential flips for the last couple years. I finally have an opportunity to crack into the commercial real estate world but I'm looking for some advice and I have quite a few questions. It's a very low acquisition cost (less than 50k) for an almost 5,000 sqft single story commercial building in the heart of downtown of a small town. The reason why the price is so low is because the building suffered hurricane damage.  It has several offices and only one bathroom (built in 1900) so it basically needs a total gut and a bathroom added (roughly 100k in reno). My question is, if my intention is to buy and hold this property, should I gut the place and repair the structural damage and leave it as kind of an empty shell? My thinking is that if I knock the office walls down and fix the floors and ceilings that suffered water damage then maybe I can begin to market it to a tenant and then potentially give the tenant a blank canvas to work with. And then if that is the case would I be responsible for investing the money to make this "blank canvas" to the liking of a tenant? Or do we find typically tenants want an empty shell to invest their money to their own liking? I guess my main question is, based on experience do commercial real estate investors find that tenants would rather have a blank canvas to customize their space to their liking or would they rather have a building where everything is built and ready and all they need to do is move in? Thanks in advance for the advice!

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  • Michael K GallagherBusiness Member
    Real Estate Agent · Columbus OH · Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    2y

    Hey @Christian Sidaros I mostly work in the "retail" arm of commercial so take what I say with that in mind. If your "repair" work includes gutting the building and fixing structural issues, I think my clients would be most interested in it if you offered it as a shell, and included TIA or Tenant Improvement Allowance, to come in and do their buildout.  This can be paid either up front in a lump some to go towards the buildout, or you can give it in the form of free or abated rent over the first couple years of the lease.  Just depends on the deal and what makes sense from the economics.

    But in general I'd treat this space like a "new build" space if the rehab is as significant as it sounds, and with new builds its traditionally a cold dark shell delivery with TIA worked for the build out.  

  • Cincinnati, OH · Member since 2020 · 4k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    2y

    @Christian Sidaros, like Michael, my background is more in retail than office.  And if you are single story in a downtown type area, your use is likely to be more retail oriented (including office space for customer facing tenants like real estate brokerage, insurance agent, dentist).  

    Cold dark shell is typically standard with TI money available to tenant.  Granted my retail leasing experience was in the financial crisis, but I would be ready to have TI money available, as many tenants will not have the financial wherewithal or capital resources to do the buildout themselves, or at minimum will expect a vanilla box (drywall, bathroom, RTU) to step into to do their own finish and signage.

  • Ronald RohdePro Member
    Attorney · Dallas, TX · Member since 2016 · 5k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    2y

    whats the zoning? What type of user will you target? A lot of lower end tenants don't want a blank canvas, they want to see themselves getting into the space and quickly. Even if you put drywall, can lights, flooring, but have to rip some of it up, its worth it to get the lease.

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