As an appraiser I’ve appraised a handful of properties recently that are outside of city limits and operating successfully as STR’s that don’t have the same regulations as the city of St Pete.

Hey Bigger Pockets community, I'm just starting out in Step 1 (get educated) on what I want to become a successful career in real estate investment.I also currently run an e-commerce business that is currently completely online, but would benefit from having a brick & mortar storefront, and I had an idea that maybe using the investment capital I'm looking to allocate into real estate into a commercial property my business can operate out of until I decide to sell the property in or rent it out to another business.I am obviously very naive when it comes to the complexity of any good real estate deal (especially commercial VS residential), but I'm hoping to spend as much time learning from everyone here who is on their journey as well.My main concern with the idea of buying commercial to operate my business out of it that I might struggle to rent it out afterwards and that there may likely be depreciation in the commercial real estate market over the next 5 years.I understand there is a lot of nuance depending on the local market but I'm guessing commercial is even less of a "safe" bet than finding a solid residential deal to leverage in some way.

How about the simple obvious that the inputs to deliver the service/product have a base-line and market prices have, OBVIOUSLY, been at about as lean of operating profit margins as can be. 

Aside from that, it sounds like my operation is quite a bit smaller than what you and your network operate with, but properties that are wholesaled are usually all cash or hard money, so the initial funding aspect usually isn't a roadblock.

We own and operate a mid size REI and property management company in Marquette Co. (~300 units or so). 

And we were operating at scale, so we had the luxury of riding a float for such.

Even if city looses, they'll probably make things difficult on operators with all kinds of rules and regs like many other cities. 

Missy is one of the top 10 turnkey operators in the US.. 

Our team’s expertise in evaluating similar homes ensured the seller agreed on a fair price, making this a seamless acquisition for Partner Driven and our partner, Billy Medlen.

I have seen several offers from operators around the country who are offering interest rates of sub 6% for a 30-year fixed mortgage with a 20% down payment required, NO POINTS.