If you are a current investor or one who has always wanted to get started then now is the ideal time to get started. The good news is while 98% of investors are running after single family homes there are less than 2% of investors going after the real money. The easy and real money is in commercial real estate.
The common belief is that you have to have a large network and lots of cash to get into commercial real estate. Almost everyone who now owns real estate in the commercial property industry who started with nothing was shown the ropes from those who already had done it.
I managed to get an interview with one of the top real estate coaches in commercial real estate to find out more about it. Austin Davis is known in commercial real estate circles for being one of the top investors who came from nothing and his holdings over the past 30-40 years have grown alot. While using hardly any of his own money and keeping his own assets protected with trusts, corporations and keeping things out of his own name.
When I asked him about how hard it is to get started he replied, "It's much easier to get started in commercial than it is in residential since the property and funding for it is based on the ability of the property to generate income and not you personally it is a lot easier to get started. It is just not true you have to have a lot of money. You just have to know how to get your feet in the door. After you get your first deal and can show lenders you have property - it's much easier to get funding for the new deals you find with little cash out of pocket."
I was very curious about this and so I started looking into it. When I went looking I could find very few books or coaches in the commercial industry giving any direction on how to get started. I asked Austin about this and he replied "While many of the more public real estate investors are known for investing with little down in commercial real estate - they don't really share it with people because honestly most investor's in this niche don't want more people getting into it. There is a very real fear it could hurt the industry if some how a lot of new people go in to this industry and make no mistake about it the old money does not want to share the pie." This made since to me and I wondered how credit, income, job status and assets would come into play on commercial real estate.
Austin replied "All of that stuff doesn't matter a lot while investors, banks and lenders are going to look at that what they really are looking for and wanting is to see you have skin in the game." I have heard many times myself about this and understood why. If a lot of newbie's have nothing in a deal and the investor has all of their money in it that adds to their risk. I asked Austin to expand on that and he explained "If you can get a large cash down payment put in escrow for the deal the bank or investor is very likely to give you funding if the deal cash flows well and they know a cash down payment is being put up on the deal. The challenge is finding the ones who are alright with your down payment coming from any source. Some investors and banks, actually most of them, want you to personally put the money down from your savings or from a lien on other property. Those are the bankers and conservative lenders. There are many lenders who just want their equity protected and are alright with the down payment coming from hard money or private lenders. they don't really care. They will of course only lend on strong property with strong cash flow that supports all the debt payments."
I asked Austin how I could learn more about this and he actually has a very easy program, it's very short and to the point and explained the process and he even did all my home work for me in it with vendor contacts! You can check out his program as well at http://www.CREprogram.com/austin
