Commercial REI NEWB Needs Advice From Bigtimers

Hello I am a newb at commercial RE. So far I have read Dolf De Roose commercial real estate book.
My residential portfolio is over 50% owned and sits at about 500k. My personal credit is 700+ ( which seems like it doesnt matter)
So I am preparing for our first deal in commercial RE for 2016. Here are some questions that I have for a mentor. (meaning someone who owns millions in real estate and is liquid institutional investor)

Questions:

  1. What are the best book(s) for understanding and choosing what types of deals to look at?
  2. What are some lower risk deals to get started with that have a nice return.
  3. I plan on going to 4 business functions per month like BNI and others are there any you might recommend for networking/investing?

My problem as you might suspect is cash flow because I worked my way up from zero and didn’t have Donald Trumps dad to give me my first million dollar loan… So here are some things that I can do to ad value to properties.

Skills to Pay the Bills:

  1. I am well networked with discount construction and am a construction guy my self to include HVACR so I can get super deals on repairs and building.
  2. I am really great at online marketing, my ad copy is pretty solid, technology is my best friend.
  3. My wife is a realtor she could easily be a broker.
  4. The down payment I can see my self acquiring for the first deal seems like it would be 50-75k by the mid to end of 2016.
  5. I do have time, yet low on cash flow … for acquiring new deals or savings.

One deal that seemed interesting was to buy commercial land and develop it for people to park box trucks at 200 USD per space… :help

Hi,

When you get ready for your first commercial purchase either look for a small 5 or 6 unit apartment building where your cash works the down and closing costs or look for an already leased stand alone commercial building with two or three units. 

I don’t know what state your in so this may take some looking or willingness to invest in another state.

            GR