Beginner's Guide to CRE

[Ryan H.]

Hello, I'm a mental health counselor in private practice, and my office rent is my biggest expense category across all personal and business expenses.  Given that I plan to be doing this work for another 25 years or so, I wonder if it might make sense to look at purchasing an office space?  What are your favorite books or resources for learning more about commercial real estate investing, and for assessing to whether it makes sense to jump in?

[Joel Owens]

Ryan are you currently in an office building with multiple stories and units or in an inline space for a retail strip center?

Retail centers typically have higher rents you have to pay versus regular office because you are usually paying  for street frontage and higher traffic levels with better sight lines from the road.

If you are buying a building you might look into an SBA loan if you will be occupying 50% of the space or greater.

As far as owning you need to evaluate the space where you are currently at. Is it a B to A location where your business is optimal? If it is not then might not make sense to try and purchase that space. If you cannot afford to buy today you might negotiate a ROFR in your lease where you have firsts rights to purchase if the owner every decides to sell the real estate.

If you would own one space in a condo type for office or retail you have to be really careful with WHO is running the association because you will likely be a small percentage owner versus the overall spaces and have more limited control and input to what happens to the project as a whole.