California is hard to make cash flow unless you're looking in tertiary markets or strategies like vacation rentals which have a lot of political risks due to affordable housing.

We worked out of a mansion where (NBAer Matt Barnes was supposed to buy it but I don't know if he ever did as they canned me) which was cool as they had a pool and a nice garden but the office politics were awful.  

Tenant reply by email and they request a conference call to discuss and negotiate the lease terms that will be suitable for them if they like the location i) You will connect the national tenant with the Fund Manager for everyone to get on a conference call or a zoom video to negotiate the term details such as how many months free rent, tenant improvement allowance, if they can go dark, any exclusives etc etc (You should not worry about that part because the Fund Manager will handle all those details) j) after that a Letter of Intent to lease will be signed by the parties reflecting the National Tenant’s intent to lease and the proposed commitment details to lease the space for 10 or 15 years with a NNN lease (NNN means: Tenant pays the lease plus taxes, insurance and maintenance) and a corporate guarantee (lease is guaranteed by the national tenant for the duration of the 10 or 15 years lease and it is backed by their entire company and their financing bank like Wells Fargo) and it will also reflect any other terms such as escalation of rent over time, renewal option for the lease if any etck) The National tenant usually sends a designer or representative to take a walk through the property and then they are ready to sign the lease agreement l) It is then that you will assign the deal over to the Fund Manager who will pay all cash and your friend will get an assignment fee (usually between $40k and $150k)Here is how the numbers will work: Property vacant under contract say $600k and now with a national tenant lined up to pay say only $5k a month NNN (meaning a base tent of $60k a year and the tenant pays taxes, insurance and maintenance and the lease again has a corporate guarantee) the property will then be valued easily at over $1,000,000 (6% cap) The upside instant increase in value is $400,000 and usually the assignment fee that your friend gets will be 10% of that upside which is $40k all done within 60 days the 45 day due diligence and 15 additional days to close (assignment fee could be 25% of the upside increase in value if Tenant commits to 15 years and in this example it would be $100k (25% of $400k upside increase) Please note that: - No real estate license is needed - No additional cash is needed on your part - No rehab process is needed (all is negotiated as a discount to Tenant to do improvements the way they want and up to their standards because Subway has different needs than Starbucks or Fat Burger Etc based on their style and standards) - No due diligence or inspections are needed on your part, it is all done by the Tenant’s Representative- There is No Down side risk because if no tenant responds during the 45 days due diligence, you can simply cancel the contract and get your $5,000 refunded (or whatever amount you put in as earnest money deposit) - This can be done wherever you live in the US - Almost all is done by internet and phone except for a couple of visits to the property The fund manager gives the training, the Proof of Fund, the process, the script the support, the tenant list, the negotiations, and the cash to close because the property eventually gets assigned to the the real estate fund This will not happen every 60 days but you have no downside, a huge upside and if done just 3 times in an entire year you will easily have over $120k in assignment fees’ income, plus experience (which btw achieves a goal of $10k per month which is most people’s income goal) Here is the best part, you can remove the fund manager and just do the deal yourself and use the $100k you have as a downpayment or a tenant improvement credit for the national tenant coming in and buy the property at $600k with an instant increase in value to $1Million Dollars You can put a small downpayment that you can cash out after the tenant is in the location and you can repeat the process each time increasing your passive income till you get to a net $10,000 per month passively (this would be 4 or 5 single tenant buildings that you will hold for passive income with full debt on each) and none of your own money since you will refinance each deal (banks love the corporate guarantees and interest rates today are very low) Getting $10k/mo income and increasing your net worth into the millions is only hard if you use conventional ways to buy commercial properties or try to do rehab or wholesale in residential real estate which are very tedious, slow, competitive and exhausting methods Fastest growing tenants right now during COVID-19 are Quick Service Restaurants and btw the last deal I did with someone like this was in July the single tenant vacant property was under contract at $900,000 and now with a national tenant in it with the NNN 10 year lease and corporate guarantee and escalations etc it appraised at over $1,500,000The assignment fee paid to the person with whom we did a joint venture because he lined up the deal was $60k for less than 20 hours of work on their part by phone Again it does not happen on every property but it happens often enough with less hassles and more upside than any other strategy I have experienced and I have been in the business as an investor, a fund manager and an educator for over 30 years

I will say, the political climate is not the best, but I would not let that deter you from getting after it.

Instead of canceling rent and sending hundreds of billions of to big corporations, they could provide a small subsidy to all Americans for a few months so that they can pay their rent while this is going on. 

The big corporate landlords back in like 2009-2011 did what everyone else said was stupid -- invest in vanilla ho-hum midwest single family homes as rentals.

Also, ongoing LLC/corporate reporting and certification can eat up a small property's free cash flow pretty quickly, so keep that in mind too.The properties I have bought have largely been in my own name - not because it is the lowest risk way to do it, but because I felt ok with the risk/reward trade off.

@Jonathan Leblond would you happen to know if there is a difference in which state I were to open a corporation?

I left my corporate job in April 2019.

An LLC has the same access to exemptions from registration that a corporation has.