CRE Investing Goals in Self-Storage or Multi-Family

[Chris Bane]

Hey Biggerpockets crew! I have been spending a ton of time reading and listening to podcasts on REI. A common theme I have heard is that many investors say they had wished they had gone bigger sooner. I am taking that advice to heart.

I have house hacked to get into my personal residence in CA and I purchased my first rental in NV a few months back. I made a few mistakes in that deal but nothing too bad. I have been networking and talking to many seasoned investors and that has led me to commercial real estate. Below are some of my goals:

1. 1) I will not be doing any more SFR buy and holds unless it is an Airbnb property that will have high cashflow. While it is certainly possible to build wealth and create cash flow with SFRs, my time frame is too short to accomplish what I need to in the SFR space.
2. 2) Short-term goal is to purchase a self-storage property or multi-family property in the next year. Ideally, I hope to find the deal off-market with a value-add opportunity so that the property could be improved, stabilized, and refinanced to pull out the initial investment and then rinse and repeat.
3. 3) Long-term goal is to be in a position after 5 years to be able to quit my W2 job if I want to at that time. To accomplish this goal, I will likely need to get to $20k/month of cash flow.

My advantages going forward are my analytical background and ability to learn quickly.

My current disadvantages are my introverted nature and limiting beliefs, which make it more difficult for me to reach out to others for help and network to find those off-market deals. I am enlisting help from my brother and fiancé in this department.

If you're still reading this... thanks for sticking with me! I wanted to share my short and long-term goals and I would love to hear how others have made the transition from SFR to commercial.

[Paul Moore]

Hi @Chris Bane. I totally agree!  I’ve been in real estate investing for 21 years and I only wish I’d gone bigger from the start.  

I’ve concluded there are seven paths to jump from residential to commercial real estate investing.  I’ve detailed these in a few BP posts and a series of BP FB Live videos last Spring. If you can’t track those down feel free to PM me.  I also detail these in the last 50 pages of my upcoming BP book on self-storage investing.  Good luck!