Free standing Commercial building

[Dr. sharon Gold]

Hello all BP's,

Being a silent listener for almost a year, I found myself reading and enjoying discussions and blogs alike,. However, struggling with a property-finding challenge for a while, I thought of trying to throw my question in, and hopefuly get some help:

We are trying to build a list of owners of free standing commercial buildings, in my area (Ventura county, California). thought of going to the county, but when I called, they said they don't have a way to separate proprieties. (anybody had different experience?)

The reason I am looking for a free standing, is that thee rest are a whole strip malls, which we can not afford. We also have limited time guidelines- need to find a commercial location in the next two month.

Any suggestions or thoughts, would be highly appreciated!

Thanks

Sharon

P.S.,

Also working with a broker, but he sends out the stuff from LoopNet, which has been very low in inventory in the last year.

[Steve L.]

Call a title company.  They have types/zoning of commercial.  Each county/title company might have different information available.

LA County has the following from a list I got:

COM,STORE

COM,STORE/OFFICE COMBINATION

COM,OFFICE BUILDINGS

COM,STORE/RES COMBINATION

COM,MEDICAL,DENTAL BUILDING

COM,MEDICAL,DENTAL BUILDING,2 STY

COM,BANK,SAVINGS AND LOAN

COM,AUTO SVC SHOP

COM,PROFESSIONAL BUILDING

COM,OFFICE BUILDING,W\RES

COM,VETERINARY HOSPITAL,CLINIC

COM,AUTO SVC SHOP,NO GAS

COM,SVC STN,FULL

COM,STORE/RES,2 STY

COM,OFFICE BUILDINGS,2 STY

COM,SERVICE/REPAIR SHOP,LAUNDRY

COM,MOTEL,UNDER 50 ROOMS

COM,SMALL FOOD STORE

COM,SHOPPING CTR,REGIONAL

COM,SHOPPING CTR,NEIGHBORHOOD

COM,MISC

COM,PROFESSIONAL BUILDING,2 STY

COM,WHOLESALE,MFG OUTLET

COM,SUPERMARKET,12000+ SQ FT

COM,OFFICE BUILDINGS,CONDO

COM,SHOPPING CTR,NEIGHBRHD,CONDO

COM,CAR WASH,SELF SVC

COM,REC EQUIP SALES & SVC

COM,NURSERY,GREENHOUSE

COM,USED CAR SALES

COM,PROFESSIONAL BUILDING,CONDO

COM,NEW CAR SALES,SVC

COM,SVC STN,SELF

COM,SHOPPING CTR,NEIGHBRHD

COM,STORE,2 STY

COM,SVC STN,FULL,LIFT

COM,ANIMAL KENNELS

COM,MOTEL,50+ ROOMS

COM,CAR WASH

[Mark Creason]

Sharon,

It is possible to put a list together but very time consuming.  What are you looking for specifically?  Do you have a value range?  Are you buying or renting?  What areas are you looking in?

Your broker could do this if he wanted to spend the time.  I work as a commercial lender and my niche is typically loans over 5 million.  I spent significant time putting together a list of about 3500 different owners through out California.  It did take a lot of time and effort.

Mark

[Joel Owens]

"We also have limited time guidelines- need to find a commercial location in the next two months."

Hi Sharon,

You are a doctor correct??

Are you buying this building to house your business or only for a straight investment??

If for business and you occupy a certain amount of space some people go with an SBA loan.

You could also partner with other investors to buy a larger property.

Finding properties off the tax records is tough. Every tax assessor keeps different records. In many cases I have an assistant create a database from scratch per county etc.

Define if retail, office, etc. and go from there.  

[Martin Z.]

what's the point of the list? 

[Dr. sharon Gold]

Hi- thanks for replaying-

Mark- looking to purchase in Ventura County, up to a million. The broker is only willing to work with what is available, advertise  in the market.

Joel-  Could you explain how you (or assistance) practically making those list? do you utilize a title company or the tax assessor? the building can be a retail or industrial.

[Juan Covarrubias]

Does broker have an exclusive right to represent you as a Buyer? If not, that may be his reason why he doesn't want to put in the extra work and cold-call off-market opportunities. 

As far as making the lists, this should be fairly simple for a Broker to do; he should already have the database if he's servicing the area. We have a program that allows us to highlight a certain part of an aerial and pull all the information for each building. The only thing it doesn't pull is phone numbers(a lot of manual work). 

[Joel Owens]

There is a system and process.

Each county and city has different zoning they assign.

So in one county B-1 means commercial retail but in another it's something totally different.

Even when you pull the tax record there are LLC's, trusts, partnerships, etc. Sometimes it takes awhile to find these people but it's worth it.

[Dr. sharon Gold]

Thanks !