All Forum Posts by: Cameron Paterson

I thinks it's a fine line.  I have come to realize how blessed I am to have a wife who understands what I do, that it's a lifestyle and not a career, and that I will always have some new crazy idea I'm excited about (whether it's my current business, real estate, or anything else). She's been so supportive, even offering free labor for me on projects when I was overwhelmed and in a time crunch.

That said, I have had to work on letting things go in the evening, and trying to give more time to us.  So there is a fine line.

But speaking to some of my friends who are in the same boat, some of their significant others don't seem to get it at all, and if I were them I would move on...

 Please PM info if he isn't swamped already!

Haha thanks for the advice but like I said above this is just a hypothetical learning exercise and I'm not interested in buying his building.  One major repair and I would be in huge trouble because I don't have reserves.  Maybe one day though!

This has definitely helped!

Thank you both!

It sounds like you don't have a property yet that you're trying to rent out.  If you're just looking to invest, are there any sub markets that seem to do better?  I definitely would stay away from areas with high supply and low demand.  Also - how are multifamilies comparing to single families?

You should call in an expert to see why it happened.  Since we aren't there, we can't know exactly.  Could be an issue with sloping, sealing...lots of things.  You'll have to determine the root problem to know if will happen again and you're right - I wouldn't just fix it and hope it doesn't happen again.

I know this happens with all types of basements, especially on older houses.  My parents have had their basement flood three times in 15 years due to separate issues.  One was sloping (fixed)), the other were sewer line backups from 60 year old pipes leading out to the main line where tree roots had basically destroyed the pipe.

If you have the down payment, why are you partnering?  Will they handle the management side?  If so, you will make a clear list of what is expected from each party and your split will be whatever the two of you decide is fair.  If it is purely management, maybe don't create a partnership and simply pay them a management fee so that if problems occur later, the property is yours and you can find another manager.

There is always the possibility that a partner may not uphold their end, which is why the only partnership I have pursued was with a passive investor and I handle just about all of the business.

I will let someone else chime in as to the legal things you can do to keep yourself protected, but again I think telling us why you want to partner will help.

Hey Austin!  I've been out of college for 4 years and I too am getting started in Indianapolis.  I have noticed a lot of people from Indy around here so there should be lots of resources.  I wish I had gotten into it right out of college so that's great you're getting a jump on it.

Wow!  So very helpful.  Thank you very much for taking the time to do this.  I was thinking around the 2-2.5 range as well, but I didn't have much to back it up.  The owner is wanting about 3.5M, and he has been unable to move it, but he isn't in too much of a hurry.

So is your target number here 22.70% for ROI? And if so - why? Is that a better than average ROI for commercial properties, or about standard? I had seen ROIs of 8-12% mentioned in other materials/discussions, but obviously this looks much better. Just wondering how you came up with your 2-2.5M number.

Ah great.  I will research that metric as well.

Unfortunately I know the renting sqft side pretty well in this area since I've been renting and shopping around for renting for the last couple years.  This property is actually one of my landlord's, so he gave me the numbers to play around with.

My landlord actually advised me to look into buying a smaller commercial property as we grow, renting out most of it to tenants who can pay my mortgage.  So that's where this is headed...probably within the next year or two.  It's what he did when he started out so looking to learn from that.