So, as I drive down the main street in my town, I can’t drive more than a city block without seeing a commercial realtor sign. Sometimes there are several per block. And, off the main street, there are commercial realtor signs all over the place. Most of these are for office type space in other buildings. Off of the main street, it is usually for multiplex units. The main street in my hometown is a good 15+ or so miles long. There are LOTS of commercial offices and buildings for sale and for lease. Simple law of supply and demand states that with this much quantity, prices are going to drop. I keep thinking to myself everytime I’m driving around, there has got to be money made from all this… but what? Anybody have any ideas or suggestions? Or any partners that have money that want a local guy to do property management?
Aside from just buy-and-hold, most likely via leasing, the only other idea I came up with was to start up shell businesses “that already have a brick-and-mortar office” and wholesale those. I suppose if one could get these office spaces cheap enough, they could be rented out as office storage units. Anything else anybody can think of?
Dean
The best way is to flip them to end buyers. This takes work and to run in the circles of people that would buy or rent these types of buildings.
An example would be to find a company that wants to expand or move to a differntent neighborhood, offer to find it for a finders feeor control it with a lease option and convince the end buyer to buy your property.
This would be a relationship business. The more people that you can solve their problem for them the more deals you can make and the better your rep.
redhawk
Sometimes there is nothing you can do unless you have very deep pockets and can take on the risk. It’s going to take years to get out of this mess. Even if you could think of some wildly creative use for one of those buildings, with demand being weak across all sectors, you’re still taking a big risk.
Redhawk’s correct, but I’m sure all those agents and investors are looking under every rock to find potential tenants and buyers. I would bet that some of those listing agents are with nationwide or regional companies that can better locate potential tenants from all over the country. I’m seeing partnerships go bad, investors filing for bankruptcy, unfinished projects, and fortunes lost from this popped real estate bubble. I would just be glad you don’t own any of those buildings. There’ll come a time when the timing could be right to buy, but right now I wouldn’t touch those properties with a ten foot pole, and apparently no one else would either…
Of course, I say all of this without knowing anything about your market…