The phrase above should be followed by an exerpt of Beevis and Buthead laughing in their moronic way.  That’s whats in my head anyway.  

So, I am building quite a nice business with real estate investors.  I am happy working with residential investors, but very quickly realize that a $150,000 residential deal is almost the same amount of work as a $900,000 commercial deal.  Now, greed isn’t the driving force here, but making enough to be comfortable is.  I decided to do some research and determine if I can do commercial real estate easily or is there some sort of learning curve.  Turns out any licensed person can act as an agent for commercial real estate in our state.  The problem I have is whether I will get a client or myself in trouble because of my inexperience with this animal. 

I hit the books and online resources.  Learned a lot about the business and decided I wanted to get into commercial real estate as well.  Turns out the analysis is quite a bit different because the tax benefits, expenses, and other business points are a little bit different.  Well, I start advertising myself as a commercial real estate agent and I get my first phone call.  An out of state daycare operator is looking for 12 sites in our state to operate a daycare.  They need someone on the ground in our state to find the sites and they will do the rest.  My commission would be protected and we would split it 50/50.   Whoa! 

I got the information on the parent company and hit the ground to find the sites.  Well, I met not only with land owners, but also developers in trying to find sites that will accomodate this type of use.  I quickly met with some heavy hitters in our area who develop property.  I made great connections and was happy to meet with some very wealthy and well-connected people.  I worked for about 9 months and had negotiated a couple of sites – with no luck.  The terms weren’t favorable for these sites because the cost of construction was rising and retailers were willing to pay more to do the deals. 

Here are some things I learned from this.  I absolutely love commercial real estate.  The dollar values are much higher and the deals are much more fun to analyze.  I met with a local developer who was just ramping up his business.  He liked that I was working with some bigger companies and he decided to have me represent him.  I was thrilled.  With two meetings with this guy, I was able to land 4 new listings worth more than $3 Million total. 

Through another contact, I was able to meet with and land a client selling some price vacant land in a much larger development anchored by 2 major retailers who combined took up more than 300,000 sqft of space.  I was in the big leagues now.

One of the parcels I listed with the small developer was a strip center of about 13,000 sqft.  That center drove so many phone calls that kept me busy.  I developed a very nice marketing package for the building including demographics, profit analysis, etc.  I felt like my business was really taking off now.

I also was developing quite a reputation in my firms office as a wealthy person.  The problem was I wasn’t closing any deals.  I was very active and I was listing properties and meeting people and negotiating stuff, but I wasn’t getting deals under contract and therefore to a close – payday.  Our firm is a residential real estate firm and I stood out as the only agent who dedicated his time to commercial real estate.  People thought I was some hotshot agent, but management knew I wasn’t closing anything.  I didn’t know how to move things along.  At one point, I was negotiating more than $6 million in deals which all subsequently fell apart.  Not due to any particular problem, but more the nature of the changing economy and the terms of the deals. 

Then I met Dave.  Dave is a broker from a commercial real estate firm who I tried to negotiate a site for one of the daycare centers.  He was working on some very nice upscale lifestyle centers in a wealthy part of town.  He also was a small-time developer who did mostly single building redevelopment projects.  Dave is a very well-spoken and intelligent person who has a no nonsense approach to business. 

We met a couple of times about various projects as well as the time we were negotiating the daycare center site.  One day, he calls me to invite me to lunch.  I gratefully accept and we meet.  During this meeting, he tells me about a very nice project he is about to get moving.  I agree that it seems like a great opportunity.  He then shocks me by asking me join his firm to get the project moving. 

My mind went blank.  I didn’t expect this and was quite honored.  I met with him one more time to discuss the details further.  I joined his firm.  Now, I am 100% dedicated to commercial real estate. 

Cool!