All Forum Posts by: John Public

I am also interested to hear this.

Cool thanks for all the insight guys (and gals). :wink:

TallGray,

Thanks for your input on the operations side of things... some of the stuff mentioned were things I hadn't thought of. I guess even if those operational components wouldn't affect me directly as the passive owner, if they caused tenants to go out of business too quickly or often then they could affect me in a hurry.

Anyway, thanks for your insight.

All the ones I am looking at are stand alone. By easy to finance are you saying that banks and lenders recognize that they are highly profitable and therefore will finance up to 90% or is there another reason why they finance easily up to 90%?

Recently I have been looking at commercial properties as well as 16+ multi-unit apartment buildings as an investment possibility. As I was looking on loopnet for pure commercial I have been noticing that there seem to be a much larger number of car washes for sale than any other type of commercial property in most cities I'm looking. Is there a reason for this? Is there something bad or undesirable I should know about that type of commercial property. If not why are so many more of those for sale than any other type (and at significantly higher cap rates I might add)? Maybe its just the cities I'm looking in, but the skeptical side of my brain is whispering that it must be something else. I'm trying to do my due diligence here however not having any knowledge of that business makes it kinda hard. I have no desire to own the business itself just the land and maybe the building with a tenant renting from me (preferably on a triple or absolute net lease).

One more question, I have heard that triple net leases are pretty hands off. Is this also generally true of gross, net and double net leases. Or will I need to get property management for those kinds of commercial leases? I ask because this will be a long distance investment and I don't have the time or inclination to do anything but the most basic and sporadic management (calling a plummer once a month is not a problem, but "toilet and tenant" issues that plague most residential real estate is not something I want to deal with in a commercial investment, I want a tenant that will govern themselves as much as possible).

Any advice for a commercial newbie?

OK thanks.

So say its somewhere between a 16 to 24 unit property in Texas. What would you say is the approximate cost of that be? I'm just looking for very rough approximates nothing extremely accurate.

Many of these properties I'm seeing listed all have mastered metering. And from looking at the financials some look like the electrical costs alone are really hurting the cash flow of the sellers (which is probably why these particular are selling).

Bump

Ok, has anyone ever done this or attempted it? Does anyone know the approximate cost per unit? Does the per unit cost go down with more units?

Do you know how much it costs to convert an apartment building from mastered metering to direct metering for the electric meters? And who could do this, the local power company? Is their anyone else who could do it properly for less?

Also is it a good cap improvement to make based on the savings of not paying the power each month? Also approximately how many years until it pays for itself? That utility seems to be the most expensive by far compared to water, gas, trash, etc. for all the apartment's I am looking at purchasing.

And if I then immediately let the tenants know they will be paying their own power bill for now on, are their any other gotchas I need to know, lease issues, legal, etc...?