Is Commercial Real Estate A Sensible Investment Today? | Office Hours
This week on the Commercial Real Estate Investor Podcast, I’m going live for Office Hours and tackling the big question—does commercial real estate still make sense in today’s market?
Between global turmoil, inflation pressure, and rising construction costs, a lot of investors are sitting on the sidelines. But if you know how to underwrite, stress test, and play the long game, CRE still offers massive opportunity. I’m sharing how I’m navigating the current market, what returns are actually worth chasing, and why timing the market is a losing game.
I’m also pulling back the curtain on what’s been going on behind the scenes—firing four team members, retooling my entire brokerage and property management operation, and getting Salt Ranch ready to open after four years of development. We’re talking construction, scent branding, shampoo selection—yeah, it’s getting real.
Plus, I’m answering your live questions: land pricing for contractor garages, leasing vs. buying, how to break into development at 17, and how to make short-term income while your long-term projects stabilize.
If you’re wondering whether CRE is still worth it—or how to make it work in today’s climate—this one’s for you.
Let’s get into it.
Get commercial real estate coaching, courses, and community to jumpstart your investment journey over at CRE Central: www.crecentral.com
Key Takeaways:
Commercial Real Estate Investment Insights:
Returns vary based on risk and market conditions
Long-term real estate investing is more stable than short-term speculation
Look for risk-adjusted returns, not just raw percentage numbers
Current Projects:
Salt Ranch boutique hotel is near completion
Started construction on a 350-unit self-storage facility in Chattanooga
Restructuring his company with more back-office support
Investment Advice:
Real estate has historically appreciated 3-5% annually
Hard assets like real estate can hedge against inflation
Buy when others are afraid, as properties might be "on sale"
Market Challenges:
Key external variables to watch: tariffs on construction materials and interest rates
Local market fundamentals are more important than global trends
Investment Strategies:
Diversify across different property types
Conduct thorough due diligence
Consider long-term potential of markets and specific properties
Professional Development:
Learn from experienced developers
Network and attend industry events
Consider becoming a broker or property manager for short-term income
About Your Host:
Tyler Cauble, Founder & President of The Cauble Group, is a commercial real estate broker and investor based in East Nashville. He’s the best selling author of Open for Business: The Insider’s Guide to Leasing Commercial Real Estate and has focused his career on serving commercial real estate investors.
Episode Transcript:
Tyler Cauble 0:00
Tyler Cauble 0:00
This episode of the commercial real estate investor podcast is brought to you by my cre accelerator mastermind, where you'll get access to my step by step investment blueprint, essentially a library of resources on how to invest in commercial real estate. You'll get connected to a supportive community of other commercial real estate investors that are doing projects just like you. You'll get personalized coaching and feedback from me every step of the way. Go to www dot cre central.com to learn more. Welcome back to the commercial real estate investor podcast live from the cobble group Studios here in Nashville, Tennessee. Back for another round of office hours. This is where we go live. And by we, I mean the royal we. I go live and answer your questions about commercial real estate, whether you're actively analyzing a deal, trying to figure out how to determine if your market is worth investing in, or whether you should just pick office over retail or retail over multifamily, whatever that is, jump in. Ask the questions. Let's have a conversation around it. Today's question of the day, what's a good return for you? I want to know. I get that question quite a bit. What's what's a good return in commercial, real estate, what makes sense for me to buy? What should I buy? Is it an 8% cap rate? Is it a 12% cap rate. Is it a 20% cash on cash return? What actually makes commercial real estate worth buying? It's a loaded question. I know that, and that's why I'm asking it to you. I want to know what it is for you, because everybody really has a different idea of what a good investment is. Before we dive into all's questions, we'll give a recap of what I've been up to the past week, talk a little bit about what I've got coming up, and then we'll jump into it. Some of you all may know, if you have been following here for a little bit, the past couple weeks have been relatively hectic for me. I've fired four people from my team, three brokers and a property manager, completely different reasons. Unfortunately, I feel like it's just been a good spring cleaning. My facilities manager was like, yeah, man, we're hunting snakes. So I was like, that's a pretty good analogy. I like that quite a bit. So on top of dealing with all the leasing, the property management stuff like that, it is April, which means it's the end, or really, technically, the beginning of q2 which means q1 has ended. So I'm in the midst of preparing investor updates on all of the projects that we have, primarily 109 Woodruff, which is our self storage facility, and salt Ranch, which is our boutique hotel. So I'm gonna be sending those investor updates out here shortly, along with Financials. That's always fun, right? Because, you know, you give investors updates, but to actually give them something solid, of like, Hey, here's the returns. We're starting to actually make money on these deals is always a good feeling. Now, of course, salt ranch hasn't opened yet, but we're getting pretty damn close, like we can taste it, and I'll tell you a little bit more about that here in a second. That here in a second, construction has started on my 350 unit self storage facility out in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Excited. Well, I guess, technically, it's Rossville, Georgia. I always just say Chattanooga is, you know, most people don't know where Rossville is, but they do know Chattanooga. So it's Chattanooga, MSA. Technically, that is something that we've been working on for quite some time, and it just takes a while to get a construction project started. So we finally started demo. I've been on the horn with my electrician multiple times this week, just diving through some of the specifics of what we want, right? Because there's so many little things that if you haven't gone through the construction process before, that you don't necessarily think about, what level of voltage do you want for your spaces? What kind of amperage Do you want? Do you want 200 amp? Do you want 400 amp? Is 100 amp enough? And you know, we're going with 480 volt, which basically means it's just, it's a lot of power, and we're not going to do 100 amp. We'll do 200 amp with a 480 volts. I mean, look, I'm not an electrician. I'm not an expert on this by any means, so don't take my word, as you know, but the Bible here, but with 480 volts and 200 amps, you're you're getting enough power to run almost every piece of equipment that you're going to possibly going to have in a space like this, especially in industrial I am not going for any heavy manufacturing at the peerless mill. And so because of that, we don't need 480 volt, 400 amp. It's just, it's a it's more expensive, it's an extensive service to have. And so what we're doing is we're going to get a few extra meters out there, just so that we can go ahead and start pulling wires off of that for the next time we have anybody ready to lease space. So pretty, pretty excited to get that going. We are in the midst of pre. Opening at Salt ranch. It feels good to finally be at this point where it's four years in the making. I mean, just the project that never ends. And if you follow me on Instagram, you've probably seen me posting a couple of, you know, updated photos. They are pouring the pool on Thursday, two days from now. So can't wait to see that. I'm also kind of curious, like I've never actually seen a pool poured before, like the concrete actually poured into a pool. I wonder how they do it, you know? Because, I mean, it's not like they're just pouring it flat, like they're actually curving it up and going up these walls. So I find that fascinating. So I want to see what they do the you know, and again, all the little details. I mean, I met with my my management company several times last week, just getting the checklist, getting all of the pre opening stuff done, you know, down to the details of like, what's the scent for salt ranch going to be okay? Well, that's not something I'd really thought about. But when we have hand soaps, we have shampoo and conditioner and lotion in the rooms. And even those little scent sprayers, you have a signature scent for a boutique hotel, it's like, okay, let's dive into this. So we're going with molten Brown, which is a pretty nice brand, and my girlfriend and I have been testing all the different soaps and whatever to kind of see what we like. And so I think we've settled on a scent, which is pretty cool, right? Like that. That starts to make a project so much more tangible. It's such a tiny thing, but you're like, wow, we're actually picking out the shampoos, the soaps, the lotions that will go into the rooms and the scent. It's I'm really excited for that. So we'll be having a an underwriting mastermind event in June, and all of my Siri accelerator students that will be in town that week will be able to stay at the hotel. So we're gonna book at the hotel for that weekend. I'll be pretty fun. Been running interviews. I am now hiring for a leasing assistant. I might end up hiring a couple of leasing assistants and an administrative assistant on the property management side. So leasing at leasing assistance at the cobble group on the brokerage side, admin assistant on the property management side, getting all of that back up and running. I haven't run interviews in probably six months. You know, I'm not constantly hiring all the time. That's part of you know, being the entrepreneur, as well as being in the business of real estate, and so kind of shaking off the rest there a little bit running through the process. Exciting. We've got a couple of candidates. Have got an offer letter going out today for one and making moves on the other. So it's going to be fun. I'm completely re tooling the company, restructuring it really, and taking a different style of approach. So instead of building my property management company around a property manager, it's actually going to be a lot of back office support, and then I'll be kind of the relationship driver there. So a little bit different from how it's traditionally done, we're doing the same thing on the brokerage side. We're gonna have a lot of back office support and assistance, but I'm still going to be the relationship driver there, and that was one thing that I had, you know, really started to delegate or abdicate, which I really shouldn't have done with especially with some of the people that I did that with, unfortunately, so good learning lessons, and I'll share the journey there as I'm going through that, that way you guys can hopefully learn from my mistakes and not make those because I'm not perfect, and I enjoy sharing that with you, because I don't want you to go out and do the same thing that I have done this week. Pretty excited about this, we are going to start kicking off a series of webinars. If you go to brokers, mastermind.com/webinars you will be able to start signing up for all of the webinars that we're doing, like training for commercial real estate brokers. Once a month. We'll do one for brokers once a month. I'll do one for investors. They're typically going to be on Wednesday nights at 7pm central time, give or take. Go sign up there, because you'll get the emails. You get all the notifications for it, if you want to, you know, actually be a part of those. I mean, they're free. They're free trainings. We'll be doing them here on YouTube. You will have to have the invite. You'll have to sign up to get the invite to actually show up for the webinar that night. So we're doing one tomorrow night how to land million dollar listings without cold calling and door knocking. That'll be a big one for a lot of commercial real estate brokers. I think we've already got 60 people registered on that one already, because a lot of brokers these days don't like cold calling or door knocking, and Logan Freeman and I are gonna walk you through our process for landing those listings without ever having to do any of that kind of stuff, which is a lot of fun. We're also doing them on the investor side as well. If you go to, gosh, what is it? Maybe Tyler cobble.com/webinar
that will get you to the investor one. I will start adding those in the description. Oil so that you have access to all of that. You can sign up once you're on that list, you'll get the email every single time we do a webinar, like I said, we'll be doing two trainings a month. It'll be a lot of fun this week. Really, tomorrow, I'm flying out to Grand Rapids, Michigan, going to be speaking there. David Green, I think, is headlining the conference. It's the Midwest real estate investors conference. I think there's going to be close to 500 people there, which is pretty neat. And I'll be talking on commercial real estate, obviously, particularly self storage, what? What makes it a good investment? Why people are investing in it, how to invest in and then I'm going to give really a breakdown of how to, how to go out and find, you know, these types of deals. So it's going to be, it's going to be a good talk. I'm pretty excited about that. I've never been to Michigan, so hopefully I get to see it a little bit before I have to turn around and come back home. All right, let's dive any else questions? If you have questions on commercial real estate, be dropping them in the live chat question of the day as well. What's a good return for you? I want to know, is it 8% cap rate? Is it a 20% cash on cash return? Is it a two times equity multiple? What return metrics are you going for when you are investing in commercial real estate? Vicin is saying, Good morning, Tyler, good morning Vic and good to see you as always. Admin is saying, what should my cost for land be when buying land to build contractor garages? Admin, it's a it's a loaded question. So it completely depends, right? Like, if you're in downtown Manhattan, you know, you're gonna have a very different price than if you're out in Omaha, Nebraska, you know, typically, like most people, are going for contractor garages, also known as flex space. I mean, some people, you know, they just kind of tool them in different ways. You're going for kind of the outskirts of town, you know. I mean, like in Nashville, be probably 15 to 20 minutes outside of downtown, depending on where you know which direction you're headed. Generally $5 a square foot or less is where you want to be for the cost of the land. So if you're buying one acre, which is 43,560 square feet, you're looking at just over $200,000 per acre, right? So can you be higher than that? Totally, right? You just may need to make sure that your end rental rates are high enough to justify that, right? And so it really all comes down to your underwriting. So Abby, what I would say is sit down and go through your underwriting, make sure that you confirm what your construction costs are going to be, confirm what your rental rates will be, and then back into it, what can you afford to pay for land based on those assumptions, right? Like you have those numbers, so back into it. Can you afford to pay $50,000 an acre? Can you afford to pay $250,000 an acre? At what point does it start to break? And that really makes sense for you. It's a good process to go through as a commercial real estate investor is testing your assumptions in your underwriting spreadsheets to see what works and what doesn't right. I mean, I do a sensitivity analysis on every single deal that we do to determine whether or not you know, if rental rates go up, will this deal work? I mean, obviously, if they go up, it will work, but what if they're down, or what if it takes me six months longer to rent this out than I thought it would? What if, you know, my operating expenses go up? What if I go over budget on my construction by 10% what happens if my exit cap rate is 50 basis points lower than what I thought it would be? Those are all things that you want to stress test when you're doing your underwriting, and it's certainly and it really helps. All right? Y t, is saying, I'm 17, and currently in high school in South Florida. I'm thinking about, shouldn't you be in class? I'm thinking about becoming a real estate developer. Do you think that's a good idea? And if so, should I consider moving somewhere else, like Texas? Y t, I mean, look, I think, I think becoming a real estate developer is a great path. What I would recommend, I mean, especially at 17, really what you want to do is go find a real estate developer that is doing exactly what you want to do, and shadow them, become their assistant, learn how they do it. Go through the process multiple times, because it's a very risky game, and it is the most difficult thing that you can do in real estate. It can be the most fun and the most rewarding, but it's hands down the most difficult thing. And all of my buddies that develop would say the exact same thing. It is, it is hard, and sometimes they wish that they never did it. But the best thing that you could do is get the experience and and get paid to learn before you have to go and take that risk on your own. So, yeah, I mean, I think it'd be great. And look, as far as moving somewhere else, it's way too early to decide that, right? I mean, South Florida could be great. Texas could be great. Really, you can develop in almost any market, right? I mean, unless the population is declining rapidly, obviously a one. And, you know, invest in that market, but there's a lot of commercial real estate marketing market fundamentals that you need to learn and understand to help you determine what makes sense in terms of the market. Because when you're looking at developing like, I mean, there could be a market where the population is declining and it's, you could see it's going to be at zero in a couple of years. But it makes sense to develop in that area, because the government's going to, you know, give you all sorts of subsidies to build a warehouse that's, you know, all robots. They don't need to hire anybody, right? Could be a pretty decent area to build. So there's a lot of factors that kind of go into that. Colin is saying, is it a cop out answer to say depends on how risky the investment depends how good the return is not a cop out answer at all. Colin, I completely agree. I mean, it's, it's kind of a loaded question, right? Because an 8% return is not always equal to an 8% return, right? I mean, think about that. I know that sounds ridiculous, but if you're getting an 8% return on a Starbucks, and you're comparing that to an 8% return on a you know, heavy value add, gonna take you two to three years to stabilize type of property, which 8% return is better? I think that we can all sit here and say, well, the 8% return on a Starbucks is better because you're not having to take the risk, you don't have to do the work, etc. So I think not all returns are created equal. You. What I like to look at is what is called the risk adjusted return, the rar the risk adjusted return. So how much risk and how much work is going to have to go into that deal in order for you to get that return right? So it all depends. That's, that's like the worst answer in commercial real estate, but it's, it's probably the most true and the most common answer, it depends. Edward is saying, Tyler, love your content. I appreciate that, Edward, thanks for being here with the world in turmoil, Gaza, Ukraine, Trump's tariff wars, etc, how would you convince a first time investor that commercial real estate investment is sensible today? Ooh, that's a great question. I love that. Here's the thing, and we actually talked about this on our mastermind call last night, commercial real estate and real estate in general was around long before I was here. It's gonna be here long after I'm gone. And it's been a good investment for the long term, right? No matter what short term blips we have over the long term, it's been a great investment if you're looking at getting into into real estate in general, not just commercial real estate. If you're looking at getting into real estate in general for the short term, I think that's an incredibly risky move, and I would advise against it. But if you're looking at it on a 510, 20 year horizon, it doesn't really matter what's happening today, because, you know, good times are probably around the corner, or we're going to look back, and maybe this was the good time. Who knows? But overall, real estate appreciates it three to 5% per year, right? So even if, even if you know, it dips down 20% in the next year, on average for you know, over 100 years, it averages three to 5% so that means, you know, you're probably going to have another year where it goes up 30% or 40% or whatever, or a few years where it just is 10 to 12% to kind of even out right, like follow the law of averages. So to me, I mean, I would say it's a very sensible investment in time like this, for multiple reasons. One, you can somewhat control it, right? I like that. If you look at what's going on in the stock market today, I mean, you can't control what these companies are doing. You can't control what's happening in the stock market or what other investors are doing. Whereas I can determine who's going to rent space for me, I can determine if I'm going to fix this building up and rent it out to somebody else. I can determine if I'm going to leave it as is, right? It's kind of nice to have that autonomy. The other thing is, it's a hard it's a hard asset, right? So it's, you know, similar to gold or silver or whatever, as inflation goes up, which, if you know, tariff wars continue on, there's a chance that inflation will go up. That's not coming from me, that's coming from economists. So don't flare me in the comments. I got a lot of hate last week when I started talking about the damage that tariffs could possibly do.
So if inflation goes up, it's it's going to the value of the property is going to go up, right? And the nice thing is, you've locked in your debt, right? So your debt's going to stay relatively low compared to the value, right? I mean, if you look at some of these people that bought real estate 20 years ago, you will get the price. You're like, oh my gosh, they bought it for absolutely nothing. Well, that could be. You 20 years from now, right? It's, it's the same exact thing. That's just how the world works. So, I mean, I think it's pretty good. I mean, look, here's the thing. For real estate, to really take a dive, for commercial real estate to really take a dive, we'd have to be going through some really, really, really, really bad things in the world. I mean, if you think about it, like 2008 was really, really bad for the whole world. And, you know, real estate in Nashville still appreciated at 1% that year. Wasn't great. It wasn't what we had been seeing still went up, right? So I think, I think more importantly than paying attention to what's going on in the global market, it's what's going on in your local market, and what can you control? So be a savvy investor. Make sure that you're doing your due diligence and buy when everybody else is afraid, because stuff is probably on sale. Those are my thoughts. Vic is saying, Tyler, I was wondering, what's the difference between leasing a property or buying? Well, Vic and so. So leasing is when you it's just like renting an apartment, right? So if you go and rent an apartment, you don't own that apartment at the end of the 12 month period, you move out, right? So it's the same thing. When you buy it, you own it like you actually own and hold title to that property. It is yours. Nobody but the bank of the government can come and take that from you. So that's, that's kind of the difference there. Technically, when you, when you lease the property, you do semi own it, right? Because you have a leasehold interest in that asset. But it is finite. It does end at some point, and it is revocable. Colin is saying, What is the biggest out of our control variable to be aware of in real estate, developing or investing? I mean the two biggest out of your control variables to be paying attention to in commercial real estate today are tariffs on construction materials and interest rates. So tariffs on Canada means that our aluminum and our lumber prices are going to go up, which means that buildings are going to get more expensive, and if every thing starts to get more expensive, that means inflation is going up right pretty rapidly, which means that interest rates are going to have to go up in order to help combat that. So those are probably the two biggest out of your control variables to pay attention to. And those are two pretty big ones. Unfortunately, Ted is saying, Good morning. Would you consider buying a property with a land lease? Well, hell yeah, Ted, I would love it. I mean, you're telling me, I can buy a piece of land. There's nothing for me to maintain, and somebody's gonna pay me every month to have. It absolutely depends on what the rental rate is, though, right? And it depends on, you know, what the cap rate is, and who the tenant is. And, you know, I mean, look, if they're storing highly toxic chemicals and open barrels, I probably wouldn't want to buy that land lease. But, I mean, let's, let's assume they're, you know, it's a good tenant. Maybe they're parking vehicles. It's a nice lot that I can see in 1015, 20 years being in the path of growth. So it's just going to go up in value, and there's no responsibilities for me as the landlord to deal with anything here. Yeah, I don't see why I wouldn't consider buying that totally depends on the situation. The thing that I don't necessarily like about buying just land is that you don't get depreciation, right? Like there's no building for you to actually depreciate, so there's nothing to write off. We don't necessarily always need that, right? So something to keep in mind, Colin is saying in the Houston area, there are major issues with development sitting for a year plus, waiting just for electricity that started after COVID. Are there things you're seeing like that in your market? Yeah, electricity is one of them. NES can be good. They can be bad. It just depends on who you're dealing with and what you're doing. Metro storm water is really tough. I mean, it's a lot of the you know, public works really in Nashville can be tough to deal with, because there's a lot of people that are building here, right? There's a lot of permits being pulled, and we haven't hired enough people or paid them well enough to make them care, right? And so generally, by the time that they've built relationships and they know how to do this stuff, they get hired off into the private sector for two to three times what they were getting paid. So it's really hard to keep people in those roles. Understandably so and so, yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot of that kind of stuff, you know. I mean, sometimes inspections take forever. Unfortunately, it's just, you know, kind of luck of the draw. Depending on how many projects are in line, Ironwood is saying, What's the best way to make short term income in real estate while long term deals stabilize? Become a broker, become a property manager. Do something active in commercial real estate. You could, of course, get into land flipping or wholesaling commercial real estate deals. It's tough. Can it be done? Of course, absolutely. I've got a video on it on this channel. I mean, I, I only did one video on it because I was like, there's, I mean, honestly, after this, there's probably no more that I really have to say about it. It's the same as wholesaling residential real estate. The only difference is it's infinitely more difficult, because you're dealing with commercial properties, you're dealing with different timelines, you're dealing with professional buyers, right? And not that, you know, residential renovators or home flippers aren't necessarily professional buyers, really. What I mean by that is like, you've got professional investment funds and groups that are, you know, putting some serious capital into these commercial deals. So they just look at things differently. And so, you know, I generally like in residential real estate, you can go out and you can put a homeowner contract, flip the contract for 10 grand, and you know, that person could close the next day, right? Like it's just, it's a cheaper product, you know, you've got a lot of lending options for it. People are accustomed to that you can't really do that in commercial real estate, you have long timelines for due diligence that has to be done before anybody will release financing on it, right? I mean, for example, I'm doing a phase two on a property that I'm buying right now, it's going to take four to six weeks. A bank will not give me money to do that otherwise, right? Like I just, I have to do it. And that was after I already did a phase one, which took, you know, a couple weeks. So that's, that's kind of how I would look at it. I mean, I wouldn't, you know, buy anything to try and fix it and flip it real quick. I mean, that's, that's where people get into a lot of a world of painting, commercial real estate. That's why I say all the time, it's a long term game. So if you're, if you're wanting to make faster, short term income, you know, brokerage is great. I mean, we've got, you know, I mean, we've got deals where you can make three to $5,000 per deal. I think the biggest deal that we ever closed, I made close to $400,000 so, I mean, it completely depends. Abby saying I'm a commercial broker and small time investor, I'm buried in minutia. What CRM do you use? Yeah, Abby, I know that feeling couple couple pieces of advice for you on the brokerage side. One, hire a VA. I mean that VA could help you substantially, simply, even if it's part time. Simply to help keep track of all of your documents. Make sure the files are organized. Make sure, you know, notices and emails are being sent out whatever right the CRM that I use is HubSpot. It's very expensive. It's great. It's done everything that I need to do and more, but it is expensive, and we're probably going to switch to something else. I'm not quite sure yet what that's going to be, but that's, that's kind of where we are with it. So hope that helps a little bit. Ted is saying I should have given some information. Yeah, he's talking about the the piece of land with the lease. Yeah, as always, the most information you could give would be great. But hopefully, hopefully my long winded answer there helped. Ironwood is saying, is the real estate professional status still worth doing given the requirements and overuse slash abuse? I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say it's overused and abused. I mean, there's definitely some people that will do that, but, I mean, I have zero problem qualifying for real estate professional status because I'm a professional real estate investor. I do this full time, right? That's who it's intended for. There's a lot of people that will try and get, you know, their spouse, to go sell a couple of homes a year so they can qualify for that. And that's what Ironwood is saying, you know, is the the overuse or abuse? Yeah? I mean, that's risky, right? I mean, if you get audited and the IRS comes in and says, Well, you only had you sold three homes this year. You can't prove to me that you spent X amount of hours. I forgot how many hours it is that you have to be doing real estate for that year. They could revoke that. Fine. You all sorts of stuff. So yeah, I mean, if you're, if you are, if you are a full time real estate professional, absolutely take advantage of that. Listeria is saying, how would you approach a deal that has a dark, investment grade tenant with a lease that has five years remaining?
I would jump up and down. I mean, I like deals like that, right? Because if it's investment grade, first thing I would do is I would do is I would want to look into the tenant right, and make sure that they're not planning to file for bankruptcy, right? Why do they have dark stores? Are they, you know, re situating their portfolio right now? Are they closing stores all across the US with no explanation? You know, I'd want to figure that out. But second, I would just say, Hey, you guys, can either, you know, buy us out of your lease. You know, give us three years and we'll let you out. And then you go lease it to somebody else, or you just write it out, wait five years, rent it to somebody else. You've got plenty of time to start preparing to bring in another tenant. I think you'd be gold in there. So it just depends, right? Because, I mean, typically, like, if the tenant has gone dark, you're going to be able to get it. A higher cap rate than what you would be able to if the tenant was open for business, right? So take advantage of that. You'll get better pricing if you're willing to put up with the risk, right? But make sure you know what you're buying. Mr. Wall Street is saying, To be frank, I have a commercial city lot, 1.3 acres, and I don't know who to sell it to. Contract ends, contingent deferred in August. Who do I talk to about buying this parcel and how do I vet them? That's a great question. I mean, Wall Street. What I would do is I would hire a professional commercial real estate broker that knows how to list and sell that specific type of asset in your market, right? Because one, they'll know all of the channels that they need to go to to properly list and sell your your asset. But two, they're probably going to know all of the buyers, right, and that is just as important. So that's what I would do. I mean, could you go and do all that market research yourself? Sure, scour the tax records, go through it looks like you're in Houston. Go through the Houston Business Journal, see who's buying land like that, and start calling them. But the easier thing to do is to probably just go through a commercial real estate broker, pay them their commissions and make it work. Appreciate you guys joining us this morning for office hours every Tuesday, 8:30am Central Standard Time, I'm going live answering your questions, so join me every week for the most part, and we'll get your questions answered at least as best as I can. If you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to like and subscribe. If you're listening on Spotify Apple podcast, rate and leave a review. We'll see you guys in the next one. You episode of the commercial real estate investor podcast is brought to you by my cre accelerator mastermind, where you'll get access to my step by step investment blueprint, essentially a library of resources on how to invest in commercial real estate. You'll get connected to a supportive community of other commercial real estate investors that are doing projects just like you. You'll get personalized coaching and feedback from me every step of the way. Go to www.crecentral.com to learn more you.
This week on the Commercial Real Estate Investor Podcast, I’m going live for Office Hours and tackling the big question—does commercial real estate still make sense in today’s market?
Between global turmoil, inflation pressure, and rising construction costs, a lot of investors are sitting on the sidelines. But if you know how to underwrite, stress test, and play the long game, CRE still offers massive opportunity. I’m sharing how I’m navigating the current market, what returns are actually worth chasing, and why timing the market is a losing game.