All Forum Posts by: Ali Nurmohamed

That depends on your market. Are your tenants paying market rent for the type of unit they're in? And does your lease already have rent steps built in? Do your renovations conform to other properties of a similar class in that neighborhood? You can take a building in a D neighborhood and give it all the gold trimmings, but that won't give you Class A rents. 

Commercial properties are valued by income. You should consult 3-5 commercial lenders regarding next steps.

@Ali Nurmohamed One-time. Also worthy to note that different brokers have different payment structures. Sometimes you'll pay the one time payment upfront and sometimes they'll have the payment spread out over several months. 

@Ali Nurmohamed you can but you don’t have to unless there is some kind of requirement in your area.

I have been having a lot of success with a free listing on Zillow lately. I know others like apartments.com as well. Just make sure you have great pictures for the listing and are descriptive about the place and your requirements.

@Ali Nurmohamed, yes @Michael Dumler is correct. Keep in mind, the cost associated with hiring a broker as well. Most often it's 6% of the base rent (ie. if the lease is for 3 years at $10k/year, their commission is 6% of $30k = $1800)

The biggest things you will want to watch for are big CapEx items and those depend slightly on whether you or the tenant are responsible. Roof, HVAC units, parking lot, etc. Also get an insurance quote from a trusted broker - my insurance was 200% higher than the seller's because he was WAY underinsured and he was getting discounts because he was a broker.

You also want to look at the tenant mix and their long term viability. I focus on tenants in my plaza that have to operate in person - salon, photographer, Subway, Post Office, etc. Things that cannot easily be replaced online.