http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com Adventures of a Commercial Real Estate Investor Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:24:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en While you are preparing to purchase a property, be prepared for 'experts' to try to talk you out of doing things. I can give you a wealth of examples, but here are a few: 1. Valuers When I purchased our shops a few years ago for $400,000, a valuer friend asked me "if ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=32 I've never purchased a property without fear. People are different. Maybe you are fearless. But I am not. Every time I make a purchase, I have a lot of doubts. Am I doing the right thing? Am I being ripped off? If this is a good buy, why hasn't someone else bought it? Will I ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=31 In 2005 I wrote an introductory course on commercial real estate investment. This 5-part course was received via email in daily installments. Here is the final part. Commercial Real Estate: How To Invest Like The Rich Part 5: How Can YOU Get Started? There's such a difference between understanding something and living it. ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=30 In 2005 I wrote an introductory course on commercial real estate investment. This 5-part course was received via email in daily installments. Here is Part 4. Commercial Real Estate: How To Invest Like The Rich Part 4: Cashflow or Capital Growth? Some people think you have to invest either for capital growth, or ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=29 In 2005 I wrote an introductory course on commercial real estate investment. This 5-part course was received via email in daily installments. Here is Part 3. Commercial Real Estate: How To Invest Like The Rich Part 3: The Day I Made $100,000 It's hard to talk about returns without mentioning the word ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=28 In 2005 I wrote an introductory course on commercial real estate investment. This 5-part course was received via email in daily installments. Here is Part 2. Commercial Real Estate: How To Invest Like The Rich Part 2: Capitalization Rate WARNING: In this part, I will show a formula. A physicist called Steven ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=27 In 2005 I wrote an introductory course on commercial real estate investment. This 5-part course was received via email in daily installments. On re-reading this course, I can see that my thinking has shifted slightly over the last few years. For example, in this course I explain that I like ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=26 Today's post will conclude my series of posts about tenant quality. Let's say you've got a good tenant, by luck or good management. Now what? By corollary, if getting a better tenant makes your property more valuable, getting a worse tenant makes your property less valuable. So, it's worth looking after a ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=16 I was saying yesterday that one of my properties became more valuable when I changed tenant. It didn't become more valuable in a way that a valuer would recognize. The new tenant wouldn't affect the official value. But the property became more valuable to me, because my life suddenly got ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=15 I'm continuing the topic of tenant quality today. I've been describing how I was extremely happy to get a new tenant for one of my properties. I feel this way because the previous tenant was, well, difficult, to put it politely. Oh, he ran the business profitably and always paid rent ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=14 I previously explained how the quality of your tenant can affect your property value. This happens when a valuer (and presumably, the market), can see that you have a better, more secure, more reliable tenant, and decides that the property is worth paying more for. People will pay more to ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=13 I was looking through one of my Valuation Reports the other day, and found a nice quote which demonstrates how valuers evaluate commercial real estate. "Well located suburban properties, securely leased to national tenants, with modern building improvements, represent prime property investments and sell on yields of between 6.5% and 8.0%. ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=12 I flew across to one of my properties this week, and met the new tenant for the first time. The new tenant struck me as a delightful person: enthusiastic, motivated, smart, and respectful. It made me think about tenant quality. But before I start this topic, I'm going to ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=11 I had a phone call today from a man representing a sports arbitrage company. His company had sent me a brochure a week earlier, and this was a follow-up. What is sports arbitrage, you might be asking? I certainly had no idea. Arbitrage is where you take advantage of pricing differences ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=10 I've got a property which is eating me alive at the moment. Last year, I sold my only residential investment property. I didn't want any more properties which cost me money each month. From now on, I told myself, I only want properties which make me money each month. This is ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=9 Last time, I was writing about techniques to rapidly increase your real estate equity. One favorite approach to real estate investing, if you want to rapidly gain equity, is to buy in an area which is about to go up. People go to great lengths, studying data, analyzing demographics, watching trends ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=8 Not every real estate investor increases their wealth at the same speed. There are faster ways, and there are slower ways. When it comes to increasing our wealth, we would all prefer fast growth over slow growth, so long as it doesn't involve any extra risk. The faster the growth, the ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=7 Some people wonder what I do all day, as a real estate investor. Heck, even my own dear mother has trouble understanding what I do. I think it was easier for her when I had a simple job which everyone understands, so she could just say "my son is an ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=6 I know this is supposed to be a blog about commercial property, and I'm getting there, I promise. But I'm going to continue about the sale of our residential property (hey, I'm on a roll). It does have general lessons which are relevant to commercial investing. We bought with the plan ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=5 I'm reminded of a few other factors in our decision to sell the residential property. It was an old house, on a rather large block. At the time of purchase, we were looking for a property where we could make a rapid capital growth, through what Dolf de Roos calls a ... http://www.tonyjohninvesting.com/?p=4