Real Estate people: I want to buy a house, advice?

[spex x]

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spex, what kind of experience do you have w/ apartments? from your posts (which are usually very informative) ive only seen you mention residential w/ the exception of the mobile home park you were considering. im curious about your commercial experience.

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I own about 50 apartment units, two mobile home parks and a few scattered single families and duplexes. I'm currently trying to sell off everything and only focus on mobile home parks. I'm also looking for self storage facilities and developing a manufactured home subdivision (slowly). In the past I've also owned warehouses, commercial retail space, etc. I have limited experience buying and selling commercial and residential real estate paper.

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one reason i ask my friend is a commercial real estate broker and runs his own biz. we've talked about going in on a deal together down the road. initially we spoke about a small apartment but he tends to think there's better money in storage units.

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I'd agree with your friend, there is money in storage units. Of course, there is money in apartments and other residential investments as well. I don't currently own storage, but my impression is that its less management hassle than apartments and such.

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he says the best deals he's seen in the biz are on a small place w/ extra land and high vacancy rate, build extra units and lower vacancy rate and sell. timeline would be 1-2 years. any thoughts or experience w/ this?

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Yes, I'd agree with this assessment. The ideal RE find, IMO, is a great property that has been managed poorly. Extra land is all the better. Since commerical property is valued based on income, it can sometimes be pretty easy to buy a poorly managed property cheap, bring it up to its full potential, then resell it after a few years of operation.

Generally for these properties there is some phycial rehab and capital improvements that must be made in order to get the place in order. So you either gotta get great flexible financing or have the cash avaiable to put the deal together.