Industrial Wedding Venue as RE Investment

[Austin Steed]

Hey Guys,

I recently was in a wedding this past weekend. And as every new city that I go to I am looking at all the Real Estate that is happening in the area. I’m an agent and investor in Columbus OH and this wedding was located in Detroit Michigan.

The area we were staying in was more so industrial that had been run down and mostly vacated. However, this area was seeing major revitalization. As new apartments were popping up, a new bar has been added, a coworking space and our Airbnb and wedding venue was right there. Keep in mind every gas station near there has the bullet proof glass where they hand you something through a window.

My mind really started turning on the wedding venue. The couple that got married rented it for $5,000 on a Friday night. I asked the owner Simeon what he paid for it and all he said was nearly nothing.

I didn’t know the numbers exactly but even if this guy just rented this place out for 4 months out of the year 5,000 for Friday nights and 8,000 for Saturday nights he’d be grossing 208,000. I’m not sure what other expenses he’d have for this wedding venue. Running off gross rents and a 20 cap he could have paid over 1,000,000 for this run down industrial building... again Simeon said he got it for next to nothing.

It seems there is opportunity here since old run down warehouses are “in” right now and cost of a wedding venue is so pricey.

Does anyone have good experiences with industrial wedding spaces?

Is there a catch of expenses that you think would make this a bad idea?