commercial real estate

I’m now using Act! as it is the only software my company supports. stay away! so slow, so buggy, very poor.

I formerly used REA! (www.gorea.com) and found it to be very nimble, fast, and functional for developing a relational database linking properties to owners, creating groups, and doing targeted marketing. I loved it.

When I was in REA, we tracked buyer criteria, linked property owners to their properties, tracked market information, and used “rifle shot” marketing to market off-market properties, etc.

It’s been years since I used REA so I can’t speak to their current version.

good luck!

again a linked in question, answered by me:

Here are three options to try. I haven’t used any but the costs aren’t too high so it might be worth experimenting with each:
www.TenantVerification.com

www.E-Renter.com

www.1-Background-Checks.com

I have a client that posts his commercial properties twice a day to craiglist to ensure they remain that the top of the list.

This is against the terms of service (TOS).

That said, I believe it is ok to cancel and repost listings every 48 hours.

I find with craigslist that being at the top of the list makes a huge difference. Calls definitely trail off after about 24 hours. Do what you can within the craigslist TOS to maintain a high position.

In the spirit of the “Four Hour Work Week” philosophy, once you’re up and running, pay someone else to maintain your posts. It is low yield kind of work.

I list my warehouse for sale in craigslist. I get my share of wackos, but also some great leads. Consider using it.

but the 10 year treasury off which commercial mortgages are set was up 7 bips today. Spreads are still rather wide in the commercial world too.

Costar runs highlights today of retail market reports from Grubb and Ellis, Torto Wheaton, ICSC, Marcus and Millichap, plus their own data.

As usual, looking for a story, the report paints a bleak headline ( “…bleak picture for 2008″).

The facts paint a different picture:

-”The U.S. retail vacancy rate stood at 6.6% at the close of fourth quarter 2007, varying only slightly throughout the year.”

-”During 2007, 111.8 million square feet of retail space net absorption was recorded, a significant improvement over 2006 net absorption of 58.6 million square feet.”

-”The average quoted asking rental rate in the U.S. has increased at a fairly steady pace over the last two years, creeping up 13.8% from $15.47-per-square-foot in first quarter 2006 to the current rate of $17.61-per-square-foot.”

-Grubb & Ellis predicts buyers will “return to the investment market in greater numbers” in 2008.

I’ll believe the gloom and doom when I see it.

If you’re a commercial real estate professional, try this commercial real estate custom search from google. searches 9 sites, including: businessweek.com, forbes.com, wsj.com, realestatejournal.com, propertyline.com

There is a lot of hype swirling around foreclosures…gurus who imply there is easy money to be made by buying foreclosures.

The most conservative play is to bid on REO (”real estate owned” by the bank) try to get a discount, spruce up and sell. Banks have gotten smarter about their REO and now almost always use agents to market the property widely (where they used to quietly sell the properties to investors they were tight with).

Or you can buy at foreclosure auction which means rolling the dice even more - buying a house without ever seeing inside it.

Whatever method, the truth is you will have to kiss a lot of frogs and weed through lots of market priced houses to find a a great deal. I did well with my first foray into this approach years ago, buying a condo in Washington DC owned by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). They post their homes on their website; they contract with a real estate agent that is supposed to list the homes on the multiple list as well. The agent dropped the ball and failed to post my condo; I found it on the web and was probably the only bidder. HUD home bidding is initially open only to owner-occupants so what’s left for investors is somewhat picked-over. If you’re prepared to live in an investment house for a year you might find something interesting.

More interesting to me are homes owned by the Veterans Administration. Ocwen disposes of the homes and the VA offers very attractive investor financing - 0% down for vets and 5% down for everyone else, plus some fees. It’s hard to get so much leverage on investment property anywhere else, especially in this lending climate. check it out.

You know the bubble has burst when people start suing the salesmen. Real estate agents, prepare to join stock brokers on the firing line of the blame game.

The lesson? Brokers do not give “opinions of value.” Only appraisers do. Do not let these words appear in the same sentence. Share the facts and let your clients draw their own conclusions.

I sell warehouses for a living, so I think a lot about roofs.

When I’m underwriting a warehouse, I use these rules of thumb:

-flat roofs generally last around 15 years. You might get more out of a particularly well maintained one, and you might get less if the job was poorly done…particularly if the new roof was laid over the old.

-It’s costing about $3 to $4 per square foot right now in my area to rip off an existing roof to the deck and replace it with a new rubber membrane roof.