All Forum Posts by: Felix Goldstein

@Brittaney Woods, both real estate professionals and regular people told me that what i was doing is illegal.  this one person that was (still is selling) this real nice pretty office building told me that when i assign a contract i'm brokering.  that was one of his reasons for not signing the purchase agreement.  my  one close relative told me that i was tricking people!  she still thinks that. she also thinks that i'm brokering even though i explained to her a hundred times what i do.  i can't say that it was "everyone" i had a bunch of people say get something under contract and bring it to me.  i didn't really start off wholesaling in this business.  

my original plan was to invest in only commercial real estate. that is what i decided to do. i didn't know what wholesaling was all about. didn't have the money to pay a lawyer to write up contracts and give me advise. since i wanted to look at the property, i decided i would buy in cuyahoga county (Cleveland area). so next i had to figure out where i would find the properties and where i was going to find the money to buy them. first i found properties just by driving around. even when i was just driving somewhere to do something i would see for sale signs. then i discovered the MLS (mostly overpriced properties on there. although you can find deals on there its like looking for a needle in a hay stack). then i discovered craigslist. as far as finding money i went to pretty much all the banks in town. they ALL said no. then i went in the yellow pages and called mortgage companies (under the section called "mortgages"). couldn't get anyone to loan me from tehre. then i found hard money lenders that would loan to me. then i came up with the idea to get a partner with the money and split the ownership of the property with him. to that the banks said yes to me. so i sort of backed into wholesaling.

@Paul Zofsak, your definition of a flipper sounds like a rehabber.  How would you define a rehabber then? i've just heard a lot about these flipper investors and didn't know exactly what they do.  to me a rehabber buys a house fixes it and then sells it.

@Chris Seveney you say "Macy's. Sears and anchor tenants own their own stores?"  you mean the business or the real estate? it seems like anchor tenants usually rent the real estate.

yes i checked. the entire property is divided up into 7 different parcels.  its one of those huge hundreds of thousands of square foot super malls. yes it does look like, the one anchor tenant that is for sale is part of a separate parcel.  

... brokers are great for explaining how to analyze a property. the ones that are "CCIM" know what they are talking about. if a broker is not CCIM, who knows if they know what they are talking about or not.

@Brandt Heflin opps you said "seemed to be" a promising investment. my fault.  well so analyse the property. seems like you like the property its a matter of how much is a good price for it, right?  i pay no attention to how much people ask.  most of the time i don't ask people how much they are asking.  its very very rare that my offer is more then the person is asking. 99% of the time, my offer is less. some times people will ask 5 times more then what i'm willing to pay! that much of a difference is very rare, but it happens. 

@Account Closed, GREAT! this seems like it will be a good discussion. we have to make some assumptions about the property for sake of this discussion. so lets assume that i have the chance to buy two family dollar property. one is in LA one is in detroit thats the only difference. lets assume that they have the same lease. NNN with the tenant paying 50k/yr. both leases have 15 years left. if some of those things are different at the two properties then the price that i would be willing to pay would be different, and therefore my cap would be different. these are teh properties that i had in mind when i started this discussion.

if i have a lease with family dollar to pay me 50k per year, i'm not taking a chance. that is guaranted. do you agree?

well i highly dought that the same investor would be willing to pay 625k in one market but 1.2 million in another to make 50k/yr. he would proabably pass on the one in cali. there might be an investor that would take both and get one at a cap of 8 and another at a cap of 4. perhaps they have 10 million and they want to buy NNN properties across teh country. who knows what they are thinking all investors think differently. i personally would be willing to pay a cap of 10 for both. that is why i don't buy NNN properties. the cap rates are toooo low for me.

@Brandt Heflin

why do you think the riverside property is a good investment? so far i don't have enough info to tell you if its a good investment or not. 

@Account Closed i would respectuflly disagree. i don't mind discussing i'm not looking to get into an arguement. how much a property is worth is an opinion. one person might come along and is willing to pay X amount but you can get another person that is willing to pay Y for the same property.  there are average market prices of course so if on average say apts go for 40k/unit in some area, well then if someone is wondering how much there property is worth, they can multiply the number of units in their property by 40k and come up with a number. so they are more then likely to get that amount for their property.  lets take your detroit and cali examples. first of all, the purchase prices are teh prices that you are paying. we are assuming these would be properties that you are buying at that price. do you agree with me on that?  as far as your last question "Why?" well you lost me on that one. explain why you think the calli property is more desirable.  as far as i'm concerned i would rather pay 625k to make 50k/yr then paying 1.25 million to make the same 50k. now there might be other factors involved but all else being equal the detroit property seems like a way better deal to me.

@Account Closed, huh? i can answer the question. when she offered me a NNN property for a cap rate of 4. i said "why would i want to buy that in cali, when i can go to detroit and but the same exact family dollar property and pay a cap of 8-9." another words, i said no to buying that cali property becuase its too expensive at a cap of 4. maybe we are not understanding each other.

@Brandt Heflin

yeah no problem. glad to help. that is what BP seems to be all about.  i couldn't sleep at night a few nights ago so i was just on here posting.   i was reading your profile. it seems like you want to start your own commercial investment company. so why not start investing now in commercial real estate.  what do you plan on going to college for? since commercial real estate takes FOOORRRREEEEEEVVVVVVVVVEEEERRRRRR, perhaps you can also dabble in residential real estate when you are just starting out.

i recently got a call from a broker about a property that i had under contract one and a half years ago. i wrote an offer got it accepted a year and a half ago. then i backed out after doing some serious number crunching. i had the right to cancel my contract so i did. i told them i can't buy at the price we agreed on. if htey agree to a price a lot less then what we agreed on, then i would buy. i was pretty new and didn't know what i we doing.  so just recently this broker calls me and asks me if i'm still interested. they are asking too much so no wonder the property didn't sell. after being on the market listed with a great broker for years.

the cali commercial market is terrible to buy in now. i called on a few properties there recently. I'm staying away from buying in cali for now. there are properties that are selling for a cap rate of 4!! i told a broker there. why would i want to buy that ( i think it was a NNN Family Dollar property) over there when i can buy the exact same Family dollar box in another part of the country and pay a cap of 8. that is two times less expensive.