All Forum Posts by: Amit Dhawan

I'm new to residential real estate investments. Any recommendations on which area in and around Houston I should start looking for residential properties and basic criteria for a "good" investment as well as traps not to fall into?

Thanks.

Sorry not been on bigger pockets for couple of years now. Just got back on!

For this specific project, it was around 20% of the total project cost including land cost. Ofcourse, as a percent soft costs would depend on the size of the project as some of the costs don't scale with the size.

Hello everyone,

It's been a long time since I posted here. Since then we've signed the lease with Starbucks for our San Antonio location. We've also purchased land in Liberty Hill for a small strip center. We just received the General Contractor quotes for the San Antonio location. Anyone with recent commercial retail construction experience? The cheapest quote we've received is for $215/sq.ft which is pretty high. Also, they are not accepting any clause that binds them to a timeline which is crazy. So no penalties or liquidated damages for any delay. Is that normal now? Any insights are appreciated.

Thanks.

Hi @Joel Owens, you had given me some great advise on Starbucks which BTW is moving forward, albeit really slowly, towards a signed LOI. Given your epxeprience, I was hoping to connect with you on a slightly different topic - long distance real estate investing. I've been working on a tool to help the small-time investors and wanted to see if I can get your feedback/thoughts. Let me know if I can send you some info.

Thanks!

BTW - we finally closed. Our first major development project. Let's see how it goes. I might not be very regular here but I'll continue to post about my experiences and learnings as we go. Currently we are going through pre-leasing activities in order to get to about 50% pre-leasing which is what banks are asking us for before they give us the construction loan. Good news is that we have one signed LOI already and negotiating on another one - a major national chain. These national chains have too much leverage and try to setup a very one sided contract. Spending a lot of money on our attorney but I think it's worth it. Stay tuned !

Thanks @Bill Snyder. Yes, actually we did get the zoning report. And agree, that is another important task that needs to be done prior to Closing.

@Joel Owens, Thanks for a great insight as well as actionable advise on my specific question. The site is a pad to a Super Walmart but the neighborhood is low-mid income so not a C but probably not an A as well - hard for me to judge. But I get your point - goal would be to push the limits with Starbucks to see how much do they want to be on this site and based on that negotiate some of the critical terms you mentioned in my favor. Thanks again! I'll probably pick your brain again in the future if you dont' mind ! 

Hi @Vicky Liu, I live and work in Sugar Land. Great place to live and raise a famaily, not the best place to invest though, atleast not right now. BTW, I'm an agent as well beside my other day job as an engineer so I can tell you there's been a crazy bidding war here on investable homes say under $300K. I myself would like to wait. Maybe wait a bit for the market to atleast stabalize a bit. Just a side note, I generally like to visit the place or have someone visit for you before and get the general picture of the place before you invest.

Thanks

Thanks @Joel Owens. I've started pre-leasing effort during the due-dilligence period but so far no LOIs. Good news is that Starbucks has shown interest but they want a lot of TI and are very restrictive. Based on your experience is it worth biting the bullet and going for it? Construction cost is a major concern as you pointed out. What kind of spread do you typically see between the build CAP vs. Sell CAP rate for experienced developers or I should say what's considered a good spread from ROI perspective.

Hi all,

Currently in the process of pre-leasing my shopping center which we haven't yet started constructing. Received some interest from Starbucks which is great but they are extremly restrictive and punitive although they do pay high rent. Is it worth it? Do they negotiate on some of these restrictive clauses in thier lease or is it take it or leave it?

Thanks.