All Forum Posts by: Brooks F.

 I concur.. especially when they seem to have no problem doing a $35k single family.. haha. (I know there's more gov't protections for single families)

It comes with the territory though. I will continue calling around, and I've spoken to a lot of lenders... there's more to call though, and always will be. I thought I'd ping on here though and see if anyone can refer, which I've fortunately already got two referrals, which is great. That's what I was looking for.

For one of the specific niches that I'm involved in however, the properties tend to fall in the 250-400k range in general business and Agg zones (but 250-350 loan amounts). Most lenders want to push the sub 500k comms into SBA, but this isn't really SBA-territory (even though the first property I bought was via an SBA 504). I both want to avoid SBA loans now and getting SBA for non owner occupied is kind of a grey area. I got around it by having a partial ownership claim to the business renting the property. 

The SBA loan terms sound nice, but by the time you eat the SBA fees and deal with their extensive disclosure and payoff requirements, they become less appealing quickly. In addition, the minute I don't own the company renting the property, it becomes an even greyer area (My lender said- "As long as you keep making your payments, the SBA won't care", yet at the same time the SBA requires financial statement disclosures...) I packaged that SBA loan with another one to get over the 500k threshold though so I got out of the SBA world. 

Thanks for weighing in, and thanks to others for the referrals!

The only lenders I've found that will do multifamilies (up to 200 units) but under $500k will not do non-residential properties. I have a lender I've been using a lot that counts multifamilies as commercial, but does 500k minimum, forcing me to take rate hits on refi's without even doing cash out just to get over 500k. I didn't lose sleep when the rates were close, but now that they are going up a bit I don't want to be forced to refi properties I just refied 6-12 months ago, going through the hoopla of expenses and rate hikes. I've spoken to other lenders with a 1M minimum on all commercial.

For what it is worth!

Of course not! I wasn't sure if it was better to post it here (under lending and mortgages) or under Commercial (since I didn't see a specific forum about commercial), but I can post over there too. Thanks!

I own some commercial properties. I can't find any lenders who will lend under 500k, so I always have to package properties together to get them over 500k to get a loan.

Now that rates are going up, I don't want to do that.. 

How do people finance commercial properties under 500k if all the banks and lenders I talk to have either a 500k or 1M minimum? It is oddly frustrating.

No problem getting loans on non commercial or multifamily, but true commercial on the other hand is killing me. I'm about to walk away from a deal I like simply because I don't want to refi my other properties.

Any advice appreciated! 

 I did a 1 dollar lease, but kept it at a year per your thoughts. I appreciate it!

 I can't sell it because of weird zoning issues where this is. There's acreage limitations to preserve the zoning situation that I'm in, and if I go below 5 acres then I can only be single family residential. that doesn't mean I need the land for any other reason than to preserve zoning.

To make a long story short, I have a couple of acres behind one of my properties. I take mediocre care of it because - well- why do more than the minimum. Its behind a tree line and stuff so my renters don't even know it exists.

A neighbor expressed concern that they would like it to look nicer and expressed interest in this land as a long term lease. They can use it and care for it, and then I don't have to care for it or worry about it. I checked with insurance, checked with my loan note, and checked with the county zoning. No issues on any of those fronts.

So their agent said, "name your price and we'll talk".

I don't know where to start! How much to charge for something like this? How long should the lease be? what should I spell out on requirements? 

I know I won't be getting much for it, but not caring for it is a plus too. Their agent suggested "Maybe a low dollar 99 year lease", but that they will discuss pricing.

I was thinking of keeping it short to make sure I can move the property if I need to, like a 10 year lease? 

Then I didn't know if it was appropriate to charge $1 for 10 years or if asking for like $250/yr per acre was reasonable.

Anyway, it seems extra challenging BECAUSE there's no real money in it and because its pretty flippant. Is there anything I should be concerned with? And what should I charge?

Thanks Chris. I fully understand the limits of what you can discuss on a public forum. I appreciate you thoughts and perspective on the topic. You've made me think of an angle I never considered before, and that is fantastic!

 Thanks for the response.

As crazy as this sounds, a family member actually owns the largest solar panel installer in the tri-state. I'm an engineer who put together a whole solar system for my house too, so your solar idea really has me thinking... If I take in natural gas wells underground and build solar farms above ground, there could be something there... although around here Solar is not nearly as viable as it is out west. That gets me even MORE intrigued about you being in NC. WV, KY and TN are my target areas. 

I'll save that for the future though. I need to find more information on things like logging and oil/gas wells. I bought some land that was set up for logging (planned forest) but it wasn't cut down in time. I'm sure it could still be logged in some form. The gas stuff though, despite there being tons of people doing it, I don't find "info". maybe I just need to buy a plot that already has wells on it. The problem is they all claim things like "I make $2000/month with my gas wells, but I turned them off to wait for the price to rise". I like $2000/month, but if its really worth 2000/month why shut it off? Makes me wonder. I also know you get a lot more one day one and a lot less in year 10, but I haven't found great info on how to forecast that curve. 

I definitely appreciate your thoughts. I don't want to pry too much, but did you self fund or find a bank willing to fund the farms? That would fall out of real estate investing into business investing, and that can be a hurdle for a new market business, but its very interesting.

 Thanks Brian!