All Forum Posts by: Timothy Douglas

You can do it virtually.  Not 100% easy, but you can.  Not everyone will be on board with that.  You just have to find the right people that are on board.  Right now though you have lots of out of state owners buying and selling, so you may never need to see them.

If you list property, how do you show it?

How do you allow unlicensed people in the property when needed?  Let's say you're working with an out of state investor who wants to sell a vacant property and you need to allow stagers into the property?

How do you accurately price a property you haven't seen for a buyer or a seller?  I've seen a lot of properties that look perfect in the pictures and are trash when you see in person, and the opposite is true too.  Sometimes the pictures are trash, but you go in person and it looks great.

@Timothy Douglas I agree most items can be handled over the phone or on the computer and I do believe that we are headed more to this direction, especially with COVID. I think most people still want their realtors eyes on properties, yes you can hire someone to perform a walkthrough with clients, but I think clients still want to feel warm and fuzzy. Clients typically have emotion when purchasing a home, investors have different mindset than home owners. Investors look for the numbers to work, home buyers purchase properties based on emotion. I would be curious if there is any legal liability to not viewing the property being the representative of the client, probably not, but just curious. 

If you can pull off doing everything virtually, I applaud you. Good luck on your endeavors!

A note to myself for 2021

Knowing you can only finance up to 10 properties in your name, no longer hold a W2 job, and want to reach $10,000 monthly passive income, why not just focus on closing one apartment deal in 2021? You already reached 60% of your goal ($6,000 current + $4000 needed). When you have $10,000 passive enough, you will be able to upgrade your primary home into a nicer and newer one that your wife desires.

@Timothy Douglas, a few things:

1. No database, search, or listing is going to have returns. You need to do your own underwriting. Understand market conditions and be able do a "soft" vetting based on that.
2. 10% CoC ROI with a 15-year mortgage is going to be much more difficult to find. That's and additional $240 in debt service/month for every $100k borrowed. You may find it difficult to make deals work with those terms. My questions would be: Why a 15-year mortgage? Why are your rates so high? I'm seeing commercial rates in the 4s with 20-30 year terms. Shorter terms should actually have lower rates.
3. Yes, paying a list service is easier. Of course, you need to be real clear about your criteria, because you're paying for it. I do think there is value in searching the public records. Especially if you're new, there's a lot of knowledge to be gained.

@Timothy Douglas are you an investor or licensed professional? One of the benefits of working with a broker is they have access to databases, like Catalyst, that do show expired and withdrawn listings. They will do the legwork for you, and that’s one of the reasons they get paid if the deal closes.

I am in commercial real estate and happy to answer any additional questions you might have if you want to send me a PM.

No way to find expired listings, @Timothy Douglas. In the commercial world there isn't any kind of centralized data base, like the MLS. An "on market" property may never show up anywhere.

If you want to find off-market properties, you'll have to do some leg work. You can explore public records for properties that meet your criteria or pay a list service. Direct mail can be effective, I think one of the best tactics is to use FedEx or UPS. That pretty much guarantees a 100% open rate. Then make sure you follow up with phone calls.

@Timothy Douglas Smart man. Depending on the size of the lots you have many options here. You can maximize the value of the office buildings directly or indirectly. Additional parking would impact the value directly, but you have to assess the current parking ratio of the buildings and see if there is actually a need for it. Parking lots can drastically impact value, and in some markets there can be a higher valuation assessed on the parking than the offices themselves.

 Adding a retail location would be a good way to impact the property indirectly. In other words, it would be an added feature of the area and benefit to employees.  A QSR for example would synergize well with offices. You also have to ask yourself how involved are you trying to get with new development which is costly these days. If you want to avoid all of that I would suggest doing a ground lease. Or simply sell the land to a developer, in the likelihood of them doing a build to suit for a new tenant and you can reap the same rewards versus tying up your own capital. (It really comes down to what the site and location need most). The real answer rests in the current parking ratio and a "gap analysis". The gap analysis will show you exactly what type of retail is in over supply or under supply. That will get the ball rolling in an evidence-based direction. I hope this helps!