All Forum Posts by: David Friedman
David Friedman has started 26 posts and replied 368 times.
Post: SoCal Multifamily Investor—Looking to Connect
- Property Manager
- San Bernardino, CA
- Posts 473
- Votes 238
Hi Bianca, I live in Redlands and my property management business, Realicore, is in Downtown San Bernardino.
We manage a lot of multifamily and single family properties for our clients in the Inland Empire. Happy to grab coffee or tea if you’re ever in the area.
I got started in real estate with my agent license at 18 and focused a lot on value-add deals for the first 8 years. My partners and I did a lot of flipping while you could still easily get 15-25% return on a flip. Then I realized I needed some stable amount of cash flow to live a normal life, so I’ve been slowly finishing up commercial projects, refinancing and holding onto them after we pull cash out. We are about to finish our first ground up development, an Ono Hawaiian Grill Drive Thru in San Bernardino, CA.
I've honestly stayed away from residential rental properties myself even though we manage a lot for other people. I find the ROI is too compressed these days, but I'm sure there are people out there such as yourself finding good deals that make sense. I've just moved my focus more towards commercial. Nothing better than a 5 to 10 year lease where the tenant has to maintain their own space besides the occasional AC or roof leak that I will fix.
Post: Looking for RE Attorney in Riverside, CA
- Property Manager
- San Bernardino, CA
- Posts 473
- Votes 238
I use Paul Cliff at Fennemore, but he is probably a bit pricey for this job. In my opinion your best bet is either becoming an agent or working with an agent/property management company who has access to California Association of Realtor (CAR) documents. They’re solid lease agreements and you can just add a few clauses on an addendum to round it out. Legal delivery of notice requires you to attempt to personally deliver it to a tenant residing at the house. If no one answers you can post to the door and mail. Email/text is not a legal notice. Make sure you take pictures/video of you posting notice so you have proof. Good luck!
Post: Hello BiggerPockets! New PRO here
- Property Manager
- San Bernardino, CA
- Posts 473
- Votes 238
Hi Eve! My name is David. I’m a commercial real estate investor in Redlands. Welcome Neighbor!
Post: Looking for Commercial Insurance Broker - Redlands, CA
- Property Manager
- San Bernardino, CA
- Posts 473
- Votes 238
Hello BP,
My client has a shopping center in Redlands, California about 60,000 ft.², all single-story, grocery store anchored, and we are looking for a new insurance broker. Anyone who specializes in this type of building? Thank you so much!
Post: 570 W 4th Street, San Bernardino
- Property Manager
- San Bernardino, CA
- Posts 473
- Votes 238
Quote from @Matthew Drouin:
@David Friedman I love this.
You have huge parking options.
You have two arts and cultural destinations there.
I think your idea of attracting a restaurant is a great idea to help with the place making of that corner. That being said, I'm wondering if you attracted an operator at the far corner near F and 4th street would be most ideal. The corner is the highest profile space and makes that building look less vacant (if you filled it), plus theatre goers would have to walk by all the other store fronts in order to get to the performing arts theatre and regal so that would add foot traffic. Plus you have a big honking parking lot which would be a great benefit to have people come after hours, get a drink and bite before going to a show.
That being said. In regard to marketing, you probably have to go guerilla on this one and do facebook marketplace. A broker is not going to be as motivated as you are to lease a 1600 sqft space or a 3200 sqft space if you combine two suites together. It's a little off the beaten path so it's not going to be a fit for a national retailer. I'm looking at traffic count around 12,000 cars a day there. Those types of users are going to want to be around West 2nd street.
Some people here were talking about monument signs etc. Screw that. Get a gorgeous mural put on the F street side of the building. Might cost you $5k to $10k but it will help you lease that space to a restaurant. I've used this tactic several times.
I wish you the best. May the odds be ever in your favor. Cheers!
I agree. The parking and being next to not one, but two theaters, is the best draw. Tons of rich old people and young kids watching shows at night.
Maybe this restaurant needs a coffee shop/cafe and a restaurant. That would fill in the daytime and nighttime traffic and keep the building busy which would attract higher paying tenants for all of the other suites.
A mural is a part of the plan. Trying to figure out what the name the center first and then we will do a rebrand of the exterior of the building. I'll make sure to post back in this thread once we have some ideas hashed out!
Thank you for your ideas. They are great.
Post: 570 W 4th Street, San Bernardino
- Property Manager
- San Bernardino, CA
- Posts 473
- Votes 238
Quote from @Sohail Bas:
All great suggestions. One other item I would address is BRANDING. Make sure you have signage for your building and make it unique. I found that many owners neglect monument signs and utilizing the walls of their properties as advertising.
I've been thinking of a name for the center. Previous owners just had it as 4th Street Plaza which is a little bland. Trying to think of something catchier, but haven't figured that out yet. I think it will come to me soon :) I will create a simple website for it as well.
Post: 570 W 4th Street, San Bernardino
- Property Manager
- San Bernardino, CA
- Posts 473
- Votes 238
Quote from @Chris Mason:
Some good suggestions already above. I like that property.
Now that you own THAT building, at THAT location, it might be time to do the "networking fluff" associated with being a "pillar of the local community." Chamber of commerce and all that jazz. You will have a hard time NOT finding folks to fill the building if you start showing up to those sorts of things.
Post: 570 W 4th Street, San Bernardino
- Property Manager
- San Bernardino, CA
- Posts 473
- Votes 238
Thank you
For all of your insightful answers! I will work on a value-add proposition and start cold-calling tenants/brokers who may be ready to jump on board.
Post: 570 W 4th Street, San Bernardino
- Property Manager
- San Bernardino, CA
- Posts 473
- Votes 238
Hi BP,
We just purchased a mixed-use building with 7 units of retail on the ground floor (13,000 sq. ft.), office above (13,000 sq. ft.) and a really cool basement (8,000 sq. ft.).
We bought the building vacant except for one tenant, a nail salon. The property owner let the building decline for many years, but the location is prime. Next to the California Theater and Regal Movie Theater.
In your experience, what is the best way to attract a restaurant tenant to a property like this? Have you had any success cold calling restaurants in the area who are looking to expand? What methods work for you?
I feel having a restaurant tenant will help to fill out the rest of the space pretty quickly if the food is good.
Here is a link to the property. Open to all feedback: https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/570-W-4th-St-San-Bernardino-...
Thank you for all of your insight! - David Friedman
Post: How many hard money loans can I take out at once?
- Property Manager
- San Bernardino, CA
- Posts 473
- Votes 238
Quote from @Steven Barr:
Quote from @David Friedman:
I can tell you from experience that you can only taking flipping so far before it becomes extremely difficult to scale. I've flipped 100 homes a year before in California. Juggling that much hard money and homes becomes inefficient and you are better off taking your profits from flipping and moving into multifamily, commercial or large single-family home developments. Imagine having 100 houses spread out all over an area. Imagine the construction team and project management team you would need to manage that. If it takes you 8 months on a house instead of your planned 4 months, the interest on the hard money took all of the profit from that project. All I'm saying is flipping can easily cascade and you are better off creating a strategy that takes advantage of economies of scale.
@David Friedman it’s funny how these threads age… I ended up scaling my flips to a point where it just makes more sense to get into a strategy that takes advantage of the economies of scale. Single family development is the route I am actively taking. Plus I’m tired of opening up walls and watching $5k disappear
Flipping was a great place to get started, but it’s not the long term answer
100% agree. Economies of scale is a powerful concept, but most of us start out flipping houses and don’t really understand that until we hit our first wall.