All Forum Posts by: John Mitchell

@Martin Z. is correct.  Really consider the quality of the assets.  Often times tenants will list cars, art work, Jewelers, Persian rugs.  These are worthless in terms of what they mean to you.  What assets can be liquidated to pay rent?  Make sure you are getting a personal guarantee from the tenant, both from the husband and wife.  

yes Jay.  There are always exceptions to the rule but for retail in the mid Atlantic 10 years is customary.  Landlords typically do not pay on renewals either.

loopnet for sales

@M.cole great info.  Appreciate that.  We are digging for more info now.  They asked for a 10% reduction which we won't do.  They were already arguably below market in our locations.  

commercial retail brokers aren't going anywhere any time soon.  It was tried during the dot com days with a number of start ups.  There are way too many variables and local knowledge rules. It will be a long time before you can click and lease or buy a building as easily as you do stocks.

we have 4 radio shacks in the portfolio.  All made the first cut after BK but now we are starting to receive proposals from general wireless to turn them into sprint stores.  Our first was received on Friday and we got two more today.  Anyone have any background info on general wireless?

it's sort of a "chicken or the egg" question.  It depends on a lot of factors.  A few thoughts:

With retail it is in most cases nnn where the tenant pays the expenses.

With residential you get more turnover but a better chance to raise the rent.

With retail you have longer deals usually 5 or 10 years but less frequency to raise rents.

I agree with most of the comments above.  A few points:

If the broker exclusively reps the bank he should tell you which bank it is now.  If he won't be very cautious as there is no reason for him to hide it from you.

Banks and pharmacies will typically pay the highests ground rents.  Banks need about 3-5ksf with drive thrus.  Pharmacies about 13k plus a drive thru.  Is the property zoned for a drive thru?  If not, will a special exception be needed?  

3% commission for the base rent for 10 years is typical for the tenants broker.  (Plus another 3% for landlords broker if there is one).  However brokers are sometimes paid on longer base terms.  Almost never on options.

Absolutely get a broker and or an attorney who specialize in retail real estate.

I have an 18 year old kid interning for me who looks like he's 12.  He's taking a gap year before he goes to college and he is an animal!  The kid works the phones hard making cold calls all day (not easy to do), is always professional and really has a future in commercial real estate.  Treat real restate as a business, act professionally and alway follow up and do what you say you're going to do.  In no time at all, older real estate people will respect you for who you are and not see your age.

here's a good one for the BP group.  I hope you guys never have to deal with...the settlement attorney that closed my last sfr home was broken into and their files were stolen.  Yup, one of them happened to be mine.  As you guys know, those settlement files have A LOT of personal information in them.  I got a letter from the atty recommending I contact the credit bureaus, which I did and put a 90 day fraud alert on my accounts.  Not a week later, Discover Card calls to ask me about the "new" application I just submitted!  Which of course I didn't.  Now the fun begins.  I had to notify all my credit cards, my bank, get a police report (which, believe it or not, isn't that easy to get in many jurisdictions) so I can put a 7 year fraud watch on my credit.  I've already spent a lot of hours on this and I'm afraid I'm just getting started...Has this happened to anyone else?  Any advice?