All Forum Posts by: John Wilson

I agree with Jay.  Rental property returns are decent but private business returns far surpass those.  

I would take 30% and buy a property for cash (low risk), take 40% and start an operating business (high risk) of some type while living off the cashflow from the debt free property and remaining 30% (risk mitigation).  My goal would be to keep that 30% as a permanent capital base if possible.  I get that excess cash is not great and drags down overall returns but I like that I can take a pandemic sized punch to my portfolio and not miss a beat.

Our portfolio currently has multifamily and operating businesses inside it already but this is what I would do if I was starting out with that capital base.  

I just did it earlier this year.  We bought a 23 unit apartment building and launched a mold remediation business.  The apartment building went straight to a property manager and the mold remediation company was the "focus".

I have seen several posts about this topic but none answered the question I am looking for.  I own several duplexes that are not separately metered.  I am unable to efficiently meter them because of the cost involved.  I would prefer to create a flat "water/sewer/trash" charge every month of $50 per tenant but I can't find anywhere that says whether or not this is legal. 

I understand that sub-metering is preferable but am simply looking for an answer as to whether or not flat fee is legal.  

Im in Ohio if that helps.

Thanks for any insights!

Thanks for the feedback.  Although I discussed lowball offers, my primary goal to provide my insights into how I feel a buyer-agent relationship should work.  As long as the buyer is being reasonable I believe an agent should be a team-member that is willing to try new things regardless of market location.

I started with a real estate agent who did not want to make low offers on properties for me, I suspect because they were accustomed to working with owner occupy buyers who don't look for margin in the deal.  I switched to an investor agent who was willing to work with me how I needed them to work with me in and I have closed 4 deals with them, all well below market price.

It sounds like you already know the answer, your real estate agent should be a partner on your team and it doesn't sound like they're being a teammate.  Unless you are being unreasonable with your offers, I personally see nothing wrong with asking to write low offers.

I think it was Dave Ramsey (normally I'm not a disciple but I like this comment) that said if you aren't embarrassed by your first offer then you offered too much.  Carry on!

Bump.  Looking for same info.

Bump.  Looking for same info.

@Charles Soper

Thanks for the responses you two. Have either of you had experience doing this? Where would you find an interested party for a restaurant or would you open a franchise yourself?

I have a commercial property that currently is full but has three empty city land lots available that are underutilized.

I also just put an 11 unit mixed use building under contract and I’m getting two empty city lots with the purchase that have nothing on them.

We are also being given between 4-6 empty lots across the street from my commercial property.

So we have abundant land but a lot of it is underutilized and is not returning anything back to me!

I’m looking for ideas on how to drive as much revenue through each of these properties and the empty land seems to be the lowest hanging fruit. I have had a few ideas of dropping portable storage solutions on there and making a mini storage facility, beekeeping and selling off parking spaces but I’m wondering what other people have done in these situations.

We aren’t able to put billboards or any advertising down. They’re all zoned commercial so we can’t drop a mobile home down, no utilities there either.

We did, we own several businesses and they are built around the idea of scaling quickly to hire people in and take responsibilities off our shoulders.  We were determined to invest local because all our companies are local and the best deals we could find at the time were all duplexes so we purchased 3.  We are now looking in the 2-20 unit space and hope to stay there as our niche.