I think I almost found a gold mine (3-4 houses in a row, empty on one of the busiest streets in town). I found out that whoever bought them, planned on or thought about tearing them down and building a business center there. At least 2 to 3 of them are in decent shape - They look vacant, from driving by. The street they are on is “Washington”, and part of the norm on the street has been for businesses to turn a house into a business instead of tearing it down to make a small business center out of it. One of the properties is a small duplex. None of them have for sale signs on them, and it looks like they tried fixing one of them up and stopped doing it at some point.
Should I tap into this goldmine ( :deal ), or pass on it?
I don’t know any of that information yet, or anything about the inside of the home(s). I could say I may be jumping the gun by calling it a gold mine, but how often do you find that many vacant homes on a main street like that?
You will be surprised. Every city has a couple of streets with the homes are absolutely worth less, and stay boarded up and vacant for years. My city has them, and they are a pain to get rid of. Find out more about that location before you :cool excited about these houses.
How are small businesses doing in your area. Those houses converted to offices or small business, are literally for small businesses and small time professionals. Are those guys still working and making money in your area? Will you be able to rent out the offices once they are completed?
You don’t know if it is a gold mine or not. You have to approach the owner and see if he is wanting to sell, and how distressed he is.
Just because he didn’t complete the conversion does not mean he is broke. He might be waiting for the economy to pick up so that he will have renters when his buildings are finished.
Maybe he is over-extended and would love to unload them. You don’t know until you’ve asked.
One last thought. Any business MUST have parking. Make that doubly true on a busy street. A parking lot is a must.
Do these houses have any parking areas available? They will be very difficult to rent out as office space or small business space if they don’t have any parking.
The type of business that has no drop-in customers doesn’t need parking, but neither do they need any road exposure. Those businesses often are located in normal residential rentals.
Brings up memories as a newbie, the 3rd house I got under contract starting off was a house that had no parking. Huge house in the city with no garage or anything, you had to park on the street. The house was on the corner of a busy street. Found out later that area had a no parking on the street rule. lol. :banghead