Comercial real estate search

[Granville L.]

I live in the Houston area and have several rental homes.  I am looking to branch out to strip centers or an office building.  I also know absolutely nothing about either one of these investments.  I seem to remember reading a post on this site a few years ago about a man or company in Houston that will find the property, look at the books, determine if it is a good investment, and walk you through the process.  I know this will cost money, but I dont mind paying to put a team together to find the right investment.   Does anyone remember that article, or give any input on this.

Thank you

[Joel Owens]

Hi Granville,

There is a huge difference between office properties and retail strip centers. Quality of tenants and location in Texas will be somewhat dictated by price range.

How much cash can you put for the down payment? Strip centers require 25% minimum down and usually 30 to 35% down. It depends on the basis point spread between debt and cap rates. 

Most commercial brokerages tend to have TEAMS of brokers and agents. So for instance if commission was 100k then 50k usually goes to brokerage on a transaction. The remaining 50k is split among the team members. Person at the top is getting maybe 20k plus and junior agent at bottom maybe 8k. They tend to have to do 4 to 8 transactions to my one as I am the principal broker of my own firm and keep the whole 100k . I am not pressed for cash and deal velocity so I can be patient helping find my buyers the right property. In Texas alone I have 250 plus commercial retail owners in my database I have built up over 15 years. The listing brokerages are so busy on the hamster wheel when trying to close listings for volume that they tend to only show what is in their inventory to sell whether it is a bad, fair, or good deal. I stay on the buyer side helping high net worth individuals through the whole process of finding the property and due diligence through closing. I work on looking through all my contacts to try and find the diamonds for my buyers to purchase. I already have a system of commercial attorneys, companies for lender reports, capital markets mortgage brokers to find the best loans, etc. These are people I use over and over again and have performed at a high level for me with consistency over time.

I look at about 1,000 properties a week nationally for clients. I stopped counting a long time ago but it is around that number each week. I am a commercial retail specialist. Medical office can also fall under retail. Office is not my thing and you can look into SIOR for specialists in that. If you do find a deal be ready to buy right away. There are lot's of buyers wanting to trade the 3 TTT's ( tenants, toilets, and termites) for the 3 NNN's (absolute triple net where you just sit back and collect a check).