All Forum Posts by: Justin Smith

I'm acquiring an industrial business park in Irving, TX and looking for property management for this 14 unit property. Do you know any PM folks that focus on commercial real estate in that area? 

Thank you Joel. I am in the middle of experiencing what you are talking about and find that I just have to be diligent and persistent. I'll be in the area in 10 days to start meeting folks in person. 

Hi All - I've agreed to terms on a property for purchase in the Dallas Fort Worth market and looking for financing of roughly 65% LTV, 10-year term, 20-year amortization. The purchase price is $1,540,000 and an 8% cap. I've reached out to many of the banks and have found half of them are out of the game at present for either being at their limit for CRE lending or having suffered oil-related losses which they are still in the process of working out. Of the remaining half, half of the lenders will only lend if you live in Dallas. That leaves the last quarter of lenders of which a handful of shown interest. Can you recommend any lenders that I should be speaking with?

I love the idea. You could split it up and lease them out or one day you could even sell them individually. my guess is you could build another building that size on the lot too. Maybe you buy it, split the lot into two and sell one to pay for the other. Obviously a big consideration for the building is the layout and functionality of it for smaller users. Can you give everyone their own loading door or dock door. How would shared access work? Is the ceiling height high enough to compete with other buildings that size?

Look up www.lee-associates.com. We are a top tier two firm with 54 offices nationwide. We have two new offices in Ohio in Cleveland and Columbus. I can refer you to an agent in each office that you can reach out to.

Joe - I specialize in industrial. My company has 50 offices nationwide but none in Penn unfortunately. I think the best way you can find someone who knows that area and product is to search SIOR (http://www.sior.com/). This is an association with that has high standards. The agents I have found through there have always been very proficient and experienced. This should give you what you need.

I'm a commercial real estate broker and investor. My current portfolio is a 3 unit apartment and 3 single family houses that all have debt on them. I'm currently qualified to buy a primary residence and am saving up the down payment. My company currently leases an office building. We have decided to purchase an office building and move out company into that building. I like the idea because I am a partner and currently pay for my portion of the company's overhead so owning the building would keep some of that money in our pockets rather than a landlords. OIur company would sign a 10 year full service gross lease with 3% annual increases. We have procured a non recourse loan for the purchase of the building and will have all of the partners form an LLC contribute to the down payment to fund the purchase.

My question is, how does owning an LLC interest in a property effect my ability to borrow in the future? Will this effect my ability to qualify for another small apartment or single family rental? If the loan balance would be $2,600,000. Would this loan debt count for all the members of the LLC? I am assuming no since the LLC would be the entity on the loan. When procuring future Fannie Mae loans would I have to show that I have reserves set aside for my share of the LLC? Are there any other ramifications of buying into the LLC that will effect other future property investments?

Joe - I am an industrial broker and have been for 10 years in Southern California and I love the product. My next step to move from investing in houses and apartments into small business parks 20,000-50,000 SF. I sure don't know of any forum like Bigger Pockets for that product type. Opportunities are hard to come by as they are almost always through brokers which mean that they are often widely marketed. My best source of information so far is from CoStar as they identify multi tenant versus single tenant if you want to put a mailer together. They only give you information on the market you pay for and the subscription is expensive. I have found most title companies don't segment their industrial data enough to segment your marketing lists any more than by size range. Let me know if you want market data on any place in particular and I'll dig some up for you and tell you where I found it. 

Hi all - I own three houses in Austin Texas that are full rented. All has been well however I am noticing property taxes are starting to creep up. Two of the properties have mortgages on them and the property taxes are paid through escrow. I noticed on the annual statement that the annual increase is roughly $100 which is a big dent to the cash flow of $350-400. I'm from CA where we have prop 13 which limits annual property tax increases to no more than 2% annually. Is there any hope in contesting the taxes? In CA I usually screen very well and lease out for a year to start and if they prove to be a good tenant then I renew them for two years at a time to reduce turnover. In Texas I feel like it makes more sense to lease one year at a time and then to adjust the rent every year based on your property taxes. I doubt tenants would go along with that. My day to day job is that of a commercial real estate broker and in our business we have a concept called a base year pass through whereby you can pass those annual property tax increases on to the tenant. Have you ever heard of that on the residential side? That would be great of tenants would go along with it.

Hi All - 

I'm 20 podcasts in, listening quickly and looking to connect with the BP community. I'm a 11 year commercial real estate broker by trade and my practice focuses on Office and Industrial property primarily in Orange County & Los Angeles County. I have a few national accounts that take me to Arizona, Texas and beyond. Otherwise, I'm four years into investing on my own account and looking to grow as we all are. My investing focus is:

SFR 3 Bed/2 Bath Entry Level Housing - Round Rock, Pflugerville, Austin Texas

Apartments - $1,000,000-$1,600,000 - Greater Dallas, Houston, Austin, Waco areas.

Industrial - $1,000,000-$2,000,000 - West Coast Markets - Multi Tenant Business Parks

Let me know if you are active in any of these areas and I'd be happy to brainstorm and kick around ideas.

Justin