Looking at first commercial/mixed-use deal, have questions

[Jeremy Vohwinkle]

Good afternoon, bigger pocketers. Just got back from touring a few properties and since I have not purchased commercial real estate before, I have some questions.

What I'm looking at is a downtown section of three adjacent buildings being sold as a package. Two buildings are single story commercial. The third has a retail business on the first floor and two second story apartments. So there is a total of 3 retail/office units and 2 apartments.

Right now, both apartments are rented along with the downstairs retail. The two standalone commercial buildings are vacant.

Asking price is $120k for everything, but the woman at the chamber of commerce told me that the owners recently moved out of town and don't want to manage it long distance and are willing to come down to around $100k.

With the three current tenants, gross annual rents are $17,000. If fully occupied, gross income would be around $24,000. Total property taxes are just shy of $5,000. Tenants pay utilities.

Now here is where it gets tricky. I'd like to use one of the buildings myself and put in a small BBQ joint. So, that's one less unit to rent, although I'd technically be renting it to myself so I guess it's a wash. So obviously, I want to buy a property that is solid as a standalone investment, but getting really juicy numbers is not as important if I'm able to also use the property to build my own restaurant.

How do the numbers look at a glance? The two big unknowns for me are insurance and financing. I have absolutely no clue what insurance on properties like these might be. Obviously, that's a key cost that needs to be factored in. And second, what would financing most likely look like? I am not familiar with commercial lending so I don't know much about rates, terms, etc. Obviously, figuring out monthly/annual debt service is another key number. But I would expect I'd be putting 30% down, thus $100k purchase price, $30k invested, $70k financed.

Anything to help me make sense of this would be very helpful. Thanks!