First of all, commercial investing is not as hard as people think.  There seems to be a stigma surrounding commercial investing.  People think it’s the big glass 100 million dollar buildings downtown.  Sure, it is, but it’s not always that.  There are many different kinds of commercial investing that you can get into.  You can start small and work your way up.  It’s not as hard as people think.  It’s not as hard to get funded, to find deals, and sometimes not as much work, once you have the deals.

Everyone that owns commercial properties are not like Donald Trump.  They don’t all have their own TV shows, aren’t in the news, aren’t in the casinos, own sports teams, and don’t have the perfect woman on their arm.  It’s just real people that own most of the commercial properties out there.  People like you and me. It’s the guy next store.  The guy that owns a few Dunkin Donuts stores.  There are all types of commercial properties.

Let’s talk about the basics.  First off, what is commercial investing?  When it houses a business, it’s a commercial investment.  Business parks, where it’s one level, and there are many different buildings, those are commercial rented condos or business offices.  It consists of office buildings in office parks.  There are also industrial parks which look like office parks, but they are mostly blue collar businesses like manufacturers, warehouses, and storage places.  This also includes strip malls where there are Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, UPS stores, etc.  It’s one building, one-story tall that’s broken off into many different stores.  Then we have our indoor malls where there are hundreds of stores inside, which include an anchor store, which is the main store, like a Sears or Kohls to get your attention.  There are also office condos which house doctors, offices too.  Also, we have warehouses, and even apartment houses.  These are considered recession-proof properties.  Assisted living facilities are commercial properties as well.  Let’s not forget about land.  People are buying land and putting a cell tower or antennae on the land and making money. 

When you are out driving around, please pay attention to what you are seeing. Start noticing these commercial properties.   Start thinking about commercial investing!   Commercial investing adds a zero.  You can do one deal a year in commercial investing and become a multi-millionaire.  Some people have done one deal and it has changed their life, enabling them to retire.  Don’t let it intimidate you.  It just has one more zero on the end! 

One of the things about commercial investing is that once you own the property, it’s easier to maintain it because most of the time, you will let the pros handle it.  You will have a management team to handle the payments, as well as attorneys and accountants handling the day to day work.  There will be less day to day work once you own that commercial property, versus a residential property.  Let’s face it.  If you own one piece of property with tenants in there, you know how much work that is.  If you have a few properties, it’s even more work dealing with tenants not paying, collections, disappearing tenants, and cleaning it out and finding new tenants.   It’s a lot of work!  Virtually, you can pretty much have the pros do it for you.  You can hire a management team, attorney, and accountant.  Properties generally throw off enough monthly cash flow so that you can have it all taken care of for you.

Anything you do with residential properties, you can do with commercial properties!  You can buy and hold a house and rent it out, as well as a commercial property.  You can wholesale it, get a contract on it, find someone to pay more, flip it, and step out of the deal.  You never owned it.  You get your finders’ fee or spread, but instead of making ,000 or ,000, you can start making ,000 to 0,000 just by flipping commercial deals.  Just add another zero or two!  Don’t let it intimidate you! 

You can also lease commercial properties with the option to buy and make the big bucks! 

All of the same techniques you can use with houses, you can use with commercial properties.  Note that one of the main differences is how you get the value.  For houses, we run comps.  For commercial properties, we appraise it on how much cash it’s throwing off.  You can have two apartment buildings across the street from each other or in the same complex, and both apartment buildings can be identical.  But, if one is 30% occupied and one is 70% occupied, and the first one is worth 0,000 and the next one worth 3 or 4 million, the only difference is how much it’s occupied.  How do you make big money fast in commercial investing?  You find the one that is 30% occupied, find 5 or 6 tenants and bring it up to 70% occupied, and then you sell, get out of it, and make the spread.  You can double or quadruple the cost or equity of commercial property by controlling it, filling it, and then getting out of it. It’s a beautiful thing! 

Don’t let commercial investing intimidate you.  Add a couple of zero’s to the profit!  Consider opening your mind about commercial investing.  Start thinking big!