Forging into Commercial RE Development

[Jeremy VanDelinder]

I've been flipping and doing buy-and-holds for over 10 years now. My particular niche is flipping fire-damaged properties and I also own a restoration company. Recently I bought a property with the intent to BRRR with the long term vision of developing it commercially (it's commercial zoning). However, as we got into the rehab we found some atrocious--even dangerous--framing. We decided it was not worth salvaging, so we tore it down.

All that to say--my long-term plan became a near-term plan and now I'M SUDDENLY A COMMERCIAL DEVELOPER! (In particular this will be a small mixed-use development.) I must say I'm pretty excited. I will tackle this and learn the same way I learned residential investing--ask lots of questions, make plenty of mistakes and move forward. 

I'm looking for experienced commercial developers to give me their advice, cautions and lessons you've learned from the "school of hard knocks." In particular, advice to you have on partnerships/syndication, presentations to the bank, working with the architect, the city and anything else you can think of. 

THANKS IN ADVANCE!