Not finding any bargains in residential. Been exploring medical office space, light commercial, light industrial, flex space, retail space, raw land (hunting ground-little income)

Thought I was getting close to a deal on Medical office...but it has not materialized yet...

Hmmm. I just am not finding any "bargains" at all.

Have any of ya'll found recent "bargains".

If so, how and where'd you find 'em? And why do think it was a "bargain"?

Around areas with larger population centers, I'm seeing all kinds of urgent care centers going up. Lots of them.

I had a chat with some people working in the business and was told the hospitals have decided that these centers are "better" because most of the visits to the hospitals are the masses using the emergency rooms for minor stuff, As well, most minor procedures can be and are done in these places. X-rays, and more. This keeps more of the people OUT of the main hospitals which cost much more to build.

Let's say, just thinking of the near future -maybe the next 5 years , that they are expecting a lot more sick people. Whether from old age, the covid or some other bug, the results of the jab, or whatever. Does not really matter. Lots more sick people - the kind that don't need the main hospital but rather, can be run through these places.

Now these places, and I've been through a few just in the last week, are specially built out for their needs. They don't just take over an existing place. Most I've seen are free standing buildings.

So, as an investor, I'd look for medium sized free standing buildings, maybe 2500-6000 sq feet that are either empty or could be gutted easily (not full of office space or former fast food places but rather big empty retail stores. As an example, one I was in this week was a former free standing Pier One store on an outlot of a mall.

The new urgent care centers , usually affiliated with a hospital, will completely build out the interior to their requirements.

So, what kind of businesses and operations are not likely to fail in the next few years? Are well able to pay rent? Will have a never ending stream of customers? Restaurants? Nope. Retail? Nope. Urgent care centers? Yup!

Picked up 2 great deals that were on the MLS. Moving into one that appraised for a lot more than contract price. It was a sweet deal!!

I was approached by three out of four heirs for a house with a garage apartment. Difficulty: house was full of fleas and cat urine. Extra difficulty: fourth heir had a 10% interest and took over one calendar year to get on board with his signature, because it also involved the probating of a will that no one had the original of. Transaction completed- Jan 2022. $8k. I'm giving them another month to finish carting away their valuables and sentimentals, because, y'know, a year wasn't long enough. ;)

We were looking for commercial in a nearby town. We wanted something on the courthouse square, so of course, you pin it down a few years before you need it. As it turned out, a guy had a medical supply business that had outgrown its original building, expanded into a new building, and then the biz itself got sold to a new owner. But the old owner still owned the original building. Word-of-mouth was able to connect us, and we were able to complete the transaction. I would have preferred a different building, with a somewhat better location, and a significantly larger size, but also needing a significantly more difficult renovation. So perhaps it was for the best. :) That other candidate was actually advertised as being for sale... except it wasn't, really, because the guy who owned it had too much sentiment attached to it to let it go. He just kept the ad up, but automatically rejected every offer that came his way. Transaction completed - Dec 2021. $40k, maybe? Not really a steal, but a relatively hard-to-get location.

We were looking for commercial space on the Main Street in our town, for future projects. One individual was snapping up all the Main Street storefronts as they became available, but because it was just a hobby, he wasn't actually seeing his projects to completion like a normal investor. We reached out to one individual who used to run a smoke/snacks/garments kind of biz, but had consolidated his business in a different location and was left with two empty storefronts, both with leaky roofs, and needing several thousand dollars' worth of masonry work to rebuild the wall he had started knocking out. He agreed in November, 2021, to sell us one of them... but in reality, he wanted to sell them both together, and it would be a bit much. He put a clause in saying that if we didn't complete the sale within 3 months, the contract was void. And now he's running out the clock. But once I saw the clause, I kind of figured that was the case... he was being agreeable, because we were being persistent... but he has no intention of seeing it through. Whomp-whomp. We'll figure something else out, but I'm not wasting the energy on forcing that one. ($30k + $25k roof.)

I have a crummy house that I bought in 2016 from a landlord's widow. She had financial problems, she had health problems, her new husband had health problems... they needed to let go of a batch of houses at once, because the City was starting to systematically condemn them. It worked out to about $500 for each property. We finally got around to doing the renovation in the fall/winter of 2021, and I'll get it offered to the first tenant this coming week. It has a vacant lot next to it that used to have a house, but it burned down a few years ago when someone was trying to heat with candles or something. We bought the vacant lot at the beginning of December, and will see what we can do with it when we have nothing else to do. But mostly it was a matter of gaining control of that part of the block. His father, who owned it, was also trying to sell an RV park for $40k. It was tempting, but I stayed in my lane. In the process of getting things worked out with the title for the vacant land (fixing a terrible deed to solidify things before we did our transaction), I noticed he was doing a lot of major electrical work at his RV park. Fast-forward to December, and his kid said he had got rid of his non-payers, and had new people in, and was grossing $4k/month (or whatever). I was impressed. Fast-forward to January 2022, and there was only a single RV at his park. (Vacant lot, maybe $2k.)

So-- takeaways-- there are always going to be heirs. Heirs will always have something they want to get rid of, so that they can do what they actually want to do with the money that it represents. However, all the heirs have to be on board at a particular price point.

There are always going to be people cashing out because they're washing their hands of the daily grind and going off to enjoy the fruits of their labors. This is going to be less of a deal, but when the stars align, it can at least be fair for everyone involved.

There are always going to be people who are so stuck on seeing something happen in a certain way, they can't take advantage of opportunity when it presents itself. You can't force someone to see things your way. You can tell them to keep you in mind if things change... but you may or may not be interested at that point.

It's good to have some extra projects in your pocket for when bargains are hard to come by. Accumulate a little more than you think you need, as long as you don't mind paying taxes and yard care on a vacant property in the meantime. But grow when growing makes sense, and consolidate/develop what you have when consolidation/development makes sense. Not every year is a growth year, but it's okay to grab a little extra to help bridge that time. Otherwise, just work on securing what you already have, rather than being focused on expansion.

I find myself doing more selling than buying.

The word Bargain means different things to different people. You need to define Bargain and determine what a true bargain would look like. I know many investors who would not know a bargain if they saw one.

I looked at house last week listed on the MLS for $23K. On the surface, $23K seemed like a real bargain. When I opened the front door, I realized this house would only be a bargain if it had been listed at $5K. However, in this insane market, some idiot will pay $23K for this house only because they think it is bargain.

I agree with Roy. What's a bargain? Depends on where you live, where you are in life, your financial goals (appreciation or cash flow?) etc.

No *bargains* here BUT there are still options if you hunt hard enough.

In this crazy market, over the past few years there haven't been many bargain's here on the West Coast either.

Bargains are made, not found. I've talked on here about how I found an abandoned 6-unit automotive shop, each with double overhead doors and 2 bays per unit plus an office. Owner was the widow of a deceased, local businessman and it had sat full of old stuff and cars for 18 months.

I picked it up for the "Bargain" prices of $450K. This amount was arrived at because of the vacancy, the "don't wanter" nature of the widow, the fact that it was full of STUFF, and that the land (2.2 acres) wasn't being use for anything but as a location for the units.

So I made my offer, got it under contract, and started leasing units. To start with, we bumped rents $100 - $300 per unit over the old rates of $850-$1000. Then we cleaned out all the junk. I had a big "fire sale" of the remaining useful automotive inventory: netted almost $17,000 cash after expenses. So right there we recouped a nice up front chunk of cash for a few renovations and reserve savings, plus increased value by raising the cash flow from rents.

Also, I've since rented out 2 of 3 plots of ground on the site that were just collecting trash and growing weeds. One guy has a haul off dumpster business. He fenced the area he rented on his own dime and pays $300/month. The other guy has one of the stalls rented and his plot of dirt is used to park dump trucks and other heavy diesel vehicle while they wait in line for him to work on them. How do we do that one grass? I looked at the grass closely and found about a 3-4 inch thick layer of gravel, tightly compacted over years, that has a lot of grass growing on top of it. Probably used to be a gravel parking area. Anyway, it's solid enough to hold 5 ton trucks, easy. I thought: "What can I do with this piece of dirt that will cost me no money?" then looking and digging a small hole in the area. The easy answer was parking. Renter pays an extra $300/month rent on top of what he pays for his regular unit.

Between these two guys, I created $600 of pure, expense-free cash flow for $0 out of pocket. They mow it, they maintain it, and I was ALREADY paying taxes on it for the whole place.

In summary: I took rents from $5100 to $6400 per month and got $17K cash in pocket from sales of machines and equipment. No one else had offered on that property because it wasn't pretty and had a couple tons of junk to get rid of. Fortunately, scrappers hauled most of it for free, and you'd be surprised how quickly 200 old tires will disappear if you offer them for sale for $5, stack them out by the road, and not care who comes and takes them away. We ended up only having to haul off a few that didn't disappear...maybe 10?

Anyway, the point is: even though everyone else was looking for that deal, I made it happen. Listed on multi-list, right there along with everything else. It wasn't invisible.... or was it?

Just got another former rental home under contract.

Selling some as they go empty.

Bigger definitely not always better.