Commercial Real Estate Investing From A-Z

What are the terms for an SBA construction loan? Can you refinance from a conventional loan into an SBA loan? Is there an 100% financing option with SBA? How many SBA loans can you take? Anne Mino, Senior Loan Officer at LiveOak Bank, shares her knowledge.Read the entire episode here: https://tinyurl.com/yu5ufr49Can we get an SBA loan for development?For construction, these loans are even more attractive. We offer a 26-year term, three years of interest only. The idea there is that you'll get 12 months for your construction process. We can extend it if it's a larger project, but then two more years of interest only for your lease-up period. And then, we capitalize everything the project needs until it can pay its bills. In other words, we are going to give you an interest reserve account that will make your debt payments during construction when there's no income. We'll also figure out what the operating deficit is during the lease-up period, and we can include that in the loan. It's a very all-encompassing loan. A lot of times, when we talk about what people can qualify for, they don't realize that it's as easy to qualify for a construction loan as it is for an acquisition loan. I'm not saying it's easier to do a construction project, but you can qualify just as easily. It just comes down to, "Do you have that 10%?" because we're going to give the project everything else it needs to get to stabilization.Can we refinance from a conventional into an SBA loan?Yes, the rule is that we have to be able to reduce your monthly payment by 10%. And if there's a demand language in the original note and if it's on an unreasonable term, then it's also refinanceable. Let's say you got a hard money loan, and it was a 10-year note. It did have a low rate, and I may not be able to improve your rate, but as long as the term of that loan wasn't appropriate for real estate, which SBA would say it wasn't if it was 10 years versus 20 or 25 years, then that is refinanceable.You also have a 100% financing option. Can you elaborate on that?Yes, this is the people's favorite thing to hear. Once you own a facility and you've owned it for 12 months, you can expand either via construction or acquisition with no more money down. The rules are, first of all, you have to have owned it for 12 months, at least. If you're obtaining a 504 loan, they want you to own it for 24 months. But let's just stick with the 7(a) world rate now. After 12 months, as long as the ownership is going to match identically, and it's the same LLC.Technically, if you're doing an acquisition, let's say, you're buying the facility down the street, you can roll it into its own LLC. The ownership of the two LLCs now needs to be identical, and they need to roll up to a parent company so that it essentially is one company that owns two LLCs, identical ownership, and the ownership can't have changed. If you came to me, and six months ago, you bought out your partner, I would tell you to wait 12 months because it's going to be a 12-month look back. After all, that ownership needs to be the same. It needs to be reasonable that you're sharing branding, marketing resources, third-party management, all of those things, if it's an acquisition, and then SBA says that is technically an expansion. And then, of course, if you're adding on to an existing property, that's also an expansion. Again, after 12 months, we can do that expansion construction loan with no more money into the project. That's a great way to utilize the SBA. Take your project as far as it can go, and build a portfolio with the least amount of money.Anne Minoanne.mino@liveoak.bank

Can you buy a property with 10-15% down payment? What are SBA loans and why do they matter? Which asset classes qualify for an SBA loan? Can you get working capital on your loan? Is there a prepayment penalty? Can an SBA loan be fixed or variable? Can an SBA loan be assumable? Can the SBA be a second loan on a property? Anne Mino, Sr Loan Officer at LiveOak Bank shares her insights.You can read the entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/bdkvxrnrWhat are SBA loans, and why do they matter?The Small Business Administration (which is what SBA stands for) is a loan program that was established back in the early 1950s. The entire purpose of it is to help entrepreneurs access capital financing that they may not otherwise be able to qualify for through traditional channels, so through conventional lending and the primary benefits are lower down payments. Think of a 10% down payment, instead of 30 to 40%, which you might see in a conventional loan, and longer repayment terms. For anything that has commercial real estate involved, it is automatically on a 25-year term with competitive interest rates, and then it's easier to qualify. You don't have to have experience in your subject field. In other words, in the self-storage world, if you don't own self-storage. That's perfectly okay, and that's why the SBA enables us to do these loans to anybody who needs them.It's a little more painful to get, but nothing compared to CMBS loans, which everybody hates, but the numbers do have to work out the debt service. Please elaborate on the debt service and what the requirements are.These loans are considered cash-flow-based loans. In other words, we want to see that the cash flow of the business can support the debt. For example, if you're just looking for a land loan, and there is no business attached to it, that's not something that we could do under this loan program. But as long as there's a business attached to it, we're looking at the debt service coverage of that business to pay back the debt. In an ideal world for self-storage, we want to see that in year one, the business can reach 1.15 debt service coverage, which essentially means the business is making its loan payment and then about a 15% profit. And then we want to see it steadily go up from there, and we're very lucky in the regard that we can use a borrower's projections that they've put together to tell us what they're going to do with that business.Can SBA do loans for any asset class in real estate?Yes, as long as it's a cash-flowing business and it must be owner-occupied, not retail, office, they're non-applicable. If you're a veterinarian, let's say you buy a strip center, and it owns some other real estate, it is okay as long as 51% of that strip center is going to be used by your veterinary practice. Same thing with storage. Let's say you had a storage facility, and there was another retail component on the property. That's fine, and still SBA eligible, as long as the storage makes up more than 51% of the total square footage.For offices, it's the same thing. I would have to occupy office minimum of 51% of my office building. And for multi-family, which is similar to self-storage because we are the operators, would we automatically qualify?Multi-family does not, as they don't touch anything with residential real estate at all, even though multi-family is considered commercial.Anne Minoanne.mino@liveoak.bank

Which real estate markets are growing more rapidly in the US, and why? What will happen to construction costs given the on and off tariffs? Pike Oliver, author of Transforming the Irvine Ranch shares his insights.Read the entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/5fxk6ydmRegarding markets from your newsletter, the few growing cities are Raleigh, North Carolina, Gainesville, Georgia, and smaller, large metro areas.There are about 56 or so metropolitan areas and more than a million people in the USA, and the ones that are growing more rapidly now are the smaller ones, those that have a couple of million population. Raleigh and Gainesville would be an example of that. And even areas that are in the 500,000 to a million range, I think some of that has to do with housing affordability, and I think that also people just maybe wanting to be in a less congested environment, that has shown up to be a factor now. The larger regions, Southern California, the Bay Area on the West Coast, Seattle, New York, all the Boston to Washington corridor on the east coast, and Atlanta, they're growing at slower rates, and a large portion of those regions do present a housing affordability challenge. If you look at the percentage of household budgets that go to housing and transportation, it's a significant percentage. Can you manage your transportation cost? Maybe that'll be somewhat dependent on distance to work and commuting, but the big cost is having the vehicle, insuring the vehicle, and financing that. The one that you can manage is to go to a market that has much less expensive housing. If you're in a market that can offer you a $400,000 house, versus a market where it takes a million, that makes a big difference.I wonder how the inflation will continue to make an impact on the bedroom communities?That's a big question. The whole issue with potential tariffs. Now, I believe we're on again with some pretty significant tariffs on aluminum and steel, affecting Canada, Mexico and and certainly China. I think that's as I understand it, across the board, that'll have some impact. I think just the uncertainty will have some impact.And then construction costs, my take on that is I don't see much abatement in that area. We're going to have, I think, continuing in Southern California, because of the fire effect, they'll be as significant and particularly on the labor side. And this also then relates to the issue of immigration enforcement in the construction industry, particularly the residential construction industry, there's a substantial percentage of undocumented people working in those areas. Again, an open question as to how much of that is going to translate into higher labor costs.Looking ahead in 2025, people were saying, hold until 2025 and you'll be fine. And now, they move to 2026, I hear lenders are extending their loans to their existing clients based past 2025, where do you think we're going to be this year? Do you think it's a great or not so great time to invest in real estate?It's always a good time if the characteristics of the individual property are great and if you can swing the equity or the debt to close the deal. As to whether there are a lot of real bargains, that doesn't seem to be the case, the only area where that seems to be a possibility is with office assets, but then you're taking on the challenge of occupying that space, or undertaking a residential conversion.Pike Olivernews.ares.orgpike@urbannexus.com

Will there be real estate opportunities in the Palisades area of California after the fire? What is the current state of the real estate industry, and what is the outlook for 2025? Pike Oliver, real estate veteran in master planned communities, and co-author of Transforming the Irvine Ranch book, shares his insights.How do you think that is impacting real estate professionals that are related to rebuilding in the area? Are people flying in from other states or cities to get that kind of business?I do know that there have been some folks who are looking to potentially acquire sites that maybe people whose homes were burned, are not interested in reoccupying, and there's pluses and minuses associated with that. Some of the folks are coming in with low-ball offers and trying to take advantage of the distress. On the other hand, I heard of a lot that burned in the ballast eyes area and whistle for a million dollars the other day, so that doesn't sound like too much of a low ball offer. A lot of things are involved in real estate, there's the good side and the bad side, as far as opportunities, there will be opportunities to rebuild, but it's challenging because of all the individual ownership of the residential lots. Whether there are large-scale opportunities, that remains to be seen, and there's a lot of work to be done in clearing the sites, certifying them environmentally, and doing all of that, and that's just getting underway, and it's going to take some months to get that all squared away. There are several issues associated with fire insurance. We've seen a lot of concern about that. California is probably going to have to look at how it regulates that, perhaps a little more liberally as far as allowing for rates to essentially pay the true cost of providing the insurance.What are some trends for the year coming from your newsletter? There is improved sentiment regarding potential stabilization of real estate and also some top markets to watch. What have you been keeping up with regarding what you think is coming up in 2025?I always like to say that I have no high-definition crystal ball, all I know is what I read from people who are more expert at this sort of thing than I am.  I think we're probably past the most challenging adjustments coming out of the COVID period. And there has been a lot of question about inflation and interest rates. I think one thing we have to always keep in mind is that what the Fed does fundamentally affects short term interest rates. Rates. Long term interest rates are kind of a different matter, although influenced.  Just everything that's going on with policy. I wouldn't be looking to see a return to the very low interest rates that we had up until the pre-COVID period. I think that's behind us now.The positive thing is we've had a few years of higher rates, although, by historical standards, in my career lifetime, not all that high. I think that the market of consumers now is going to be more accustomed to interest rates in the 6 7% realm, less put off by it, and people's lives change. Their families change. They have a need, and they're not going to wait forever to act upon that need if they can afford it.Pike Olivernews.ares.orgpike@urbannexus.com

How to negotiate better loan terms and manage lender relationships? We will also cover top lessons learned at the latest conference and evens, and what is the current state of the market?Read this interview here: https://tinyurl.com/yf53zdpuLessons LearnedSome of the Dollar Stores that closed are now selling in bankruptcy for a huge discount.There are so many ways you can partner up with people, you can do a JV (joint venture) with owners who have a lot of dark real estate (such as Dollar stores that are closing). Dark retail is a retail store that still has a lease but they have decided to close doors, they are still responsible for rent, but having a dark retail in your center isn’t good for your other tenants, so you would want to have that property filled again. What can you convert that to?You can partner up with cities, ask the city what do they need, offer to buy the land at $1/sf, offer to pay starting on year 3-10 when the property is ready or fully stabilized, get funds from them or breaks in fees.If you need a capital partner, there are capital market intermediaries that can help you find family offices or a construction loan, I spoke with a couple of people that did that a while ago and as far as I recall, their fees are around 2-2.5%.When you raise a fund, the real estate fund management fee is 1.5-2% of the committed capital.Don’t give special terms such as MFN unless an investor is committing a minimum of 25% of the deal. A “Most Favored Nation” clause gives a party the legal right to terms and benefits under the contract that are as good as or more favorable than the terms and benefits received by anyone else who enters into a similar contract with the other party.After webinar let them know you have the next week open for any questions they may have, this builds trust and helps them move forward.Loans and Lenders:You must pick up 5-6 new lenders a year.Meet all of your lenders yearly, give them a report with your PFS (personal financial statement), show all property owned, how they have performed, share your mistakes and lessons learned, share the vision for the company, be proactive, present the business plan, how have you operated the assets.After a loan is done, the lenders get a 2 week update, then it becomes quarterly. Send pictures, and show how are you doing vs pro forma.Negotiate on loan unforeseen costs, stick with your needs even if you may lose that lender.Negotiate that if you hit x percentage value increase, the lender gives the loan at x interest rate.Agency debt is non recourse, and credit unions are great.Don’t give any personal guarantees, the bigger you go, the less common it is for them to ask for a personal guarantee, lots of co-GP family offices can help and will show their balance sheet. You will need to have some guarantor for carve outs only.We must negotiate debt to the ground, LTC is currently at 50%, don’t do variable rate.We must read all pages of the loan docs and comment, edit, someone I know has made as many as 500 comments. You must have other banks lined up first they say no. Also, put a homestead exemption on all of your loan documents so they can’t take your home in case things go south, and make sure that they’re not removing any of your constitutional rights.What topics should I cover next? Let me know at admin@montecarlorei.com

What are some retail trends that may not be so obvious today? Why should you add a retail component to your multi-family project? How to host a successful popup in your center? Edie Weintraub, Founder and Managing Director of Terra Alma, shares her insights.Read this interview here: https://tinyurl.com/v25xssbnWe all know that retail is changing. It's a lot more service-oriented today, and it will be even more moving forward as people want to buy things online. How do you help them have a diverse amount of service providers so that they will all work with each other well in terms of what they provide so they are all thriving in that center?We evaluate the local community and understand what's missing. If there's already an Italian restaurant in the market, we don't want to step on anybody's toes. The worst thing to have is a new shopping center or a new downtown walkable community, and immediately the first thing that pops up is a duplication of what's already there. We take the time to get to know what the community is asking for, attend local meetings, and talk about economic development. It is common for us to stop people on the street and say, "Hey, we're going to be working on a project that's coming up, and we want your input" because the more the community feels like they are part of the process, the more they're going to welcome the project with open arms. We've had conversations on behalf of multi-family developers to say, "Let us go and work for the community early," because if we can do an activation, a pop-up, or a farmers market on the site before you build, chances are we can get goodwill from the community. They will be excited for us to potentially capture some of those vendors from the farmers market and put them in a permanent space. There's nothing worse than someone coming in from outside and saying, "My Italian is better than your Italian," and that's not a good way to garner goodwill when you're coming into a new community.Can you elaborate on how they work because sometimes water is involved and all of that? Which effort would it take from the owner of the property for these popups?It depends on how much time we have because, at the very beginning, you've probably got a property under contract, and you need to go through the approval process. We're working with the current owner of the property and not our future client, who's going through the approval process. It is up to the current owner if they are receptive to dealing with us and letting us activate it so that there is positive momentum. It could be something as easy as a shipping container park. It could be a food truck park and those investments are picnic tables. Maybe there's existing space on the property that we can leverage bathrooms for, or it just might be a farmers market where we're not necessarily providing bathrooms but just creating a gathering space that people can come to. You can activate it on something as small as half an acre or an acre, but it just depends on what that timeline is.A lot of the folks that we work with on the multi-family side and who we advise on the retail component are leaning in the direction of having anywhere from 12 to 25,000 square feet of retail space, and that's a good critical mass. We're going to assess what else is in the community and hopefully be able to leverage and be respectful of what's there. But if we're coming in and there's nothing around us within a 10-minute drive, 25,000 is that magic number that we would like to see in terms of a retail component. A lot of times, multi-family developers are pushed to do retail, and they don't want to, they don't get it, or they don't have performance for it. In my opinion, they end up performing in the space too high. It really should be an amenity, just like the fitness studio, just like the pool, just like any walking trails around it, because if you have the right retailer or cafe at the base of your apartment building, those tenants upstairs have an opportunity to make a friend, maybe a future spouse or partner or business relationship. They're more likely to stay a second year and a third year, and you don't have to start all over and try to find a new resident because you've created a sense of place, a sense of community, and it's a much nicer place to be in.Edie Weintraubwww.terraalma.comhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hustle-and-heart-conversations-with-culture-creators/id1750502470

How to repurpose real estate? How to negotiate a contract in an expensive area? How to work with the city to get your project entitled? These were notes from a development event we attended.Read the entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/9624cn5kSmart developers are in touch with their city representatives. The city is a great resource for leads. If you meet with them, they will tell you: that’s a bad land owner, or we want this place developed. Entitlement goes super fast when the city owns the land. Create a public/private partnership with the city so they sell their land for cheap and you build what they need in the area, and they allow the change of use to what is needed. You would put a development agreement in place, and the city offsets fees to help the deal work. Ask city what projects are stuck, which projects developers are not paying them for or have loans coming up. If working with land that the city owns isn't an option, and for areas that you may think there is no more land to build, note that everything is still available to build, in the sense of you can repurpose several buildings. The things the presenter looks to get in contract and build (in their case multi family) are: auto dealerships, used car lots, private schools, a shopping center that isn’t doing well. When working on a deal in a city that is known to be difficult, for example, any city in California, make sure to keep the deposit on your offer very low. They recommend $50-100k, and make sure that you can get your deposit back if there is a 50-50 chance of the project working out. Try to figure out early with the city if it is likely to work out or not. If the seller doesn't like your offer with a $50k deposit and 2 yr due diligence, show them your track record, in the sense that you will close once you get through the city, and show the fact that you have always closed on all of your deals. A contract that has worked for the presenter is having 75-90 days feasibility, and at the end of that, have a non refundable deposit, in this example $50k, and have a close of escrow based on getting the permit, or a 18-24 month timeframe, with options to extend. You should also note that you will close earlier if you get the grading permit, or within 18 months and 3 extension options. You may think this is unrealistic in expensive areas in California, but they normally get this accepted because they close on 100% of deals that they get permits for. As far as getting any property entitled, make sure to have individual meetings with each city council member before getting it entitled, so you can manage the story very well. Find what’s important to the neighbor as well. People are investing in what they call "bedroom communities" which are the cities near larger cities that are growing, also known as path of progress. An example would be Atlanta and Marietta which is a near by town that people started moving to after prices in Atlanta got too expensive, but they still work in Atlanta. Lastly, a few months ago we interviewed someone that was building homes with a retail component in the bottom in Utah, so that the owner would have their business at the bottom and live on top, and that person said that those were very popular. However, at this event, they said the opposite, shopkeep space for the bottom part of a house is not the best way to address that, the best is to have a condominium lease floor and have a retail broker lease them out. We are highlighting both perspectives so that you do your own homework, if this is something you'd like to build in the future.

What is the current state of the economy and real estate market? What are the opportunities and challenges in the commercial real estate market? Michael Ryan, an investor and loan broker with over 23 years of experience, shares his knowledge.Read this episode here: https://tinyurl.com/49eua957Based on all of your readings so far, what is happening right now?The two fundamentals for generating wealth in the US have not changed, it's either small business or real estate. The economy goes up and down. We are having a recession right now, I purchased more properties at the peak of markets, knowing the markets were going to roll over and go down. It isn't because I wanted to, it's because as an independent contractor in the mortgage business, my income is best at market peaks, and it tanks in the downturns which are the best times to buy. My tax returns don't support it, so I have to figure out how to generate wealth through real estate, and buy at market peaks, knowing that I am doing exactly that.Real estate is the slowest and the most boring path to wealth, but if you hang on to something for 20 years, the value is going to be up. We see the same thing with the equities market, the stock markets, spin the wheel of fortune, pick a date, and roll 20 years forward. I've property outside of Tampa, and they're talking about Tampa residential real estate stinks now due to over building, people moving to Florida seem to be slowing down, that's the headline. When you're coming off of five years of massive growth, does it make sense to have a little cooling period? Apartment buildings, after massive growth, does it make sense for the market to pull back a little bit? Does that mean that apartments are a bad investment? After Phoenix goes up 25% a year for four years, do you want to buy in Phoenix? Maybe not in year five but does that mean you're going to ignore Phoenix for the next 37 years?As far as a recession, I've always been in the "easy landing camp", because of other aspects going on. The job market is holding up because until the job market tanks, which is a trailing indicator, we're not hitting it. The bigger challenge we're having is the two, or three years of overcooked inflation, that's what everybody's fighting right now.Looking into the next two years, what do you think people should be doing right now about commercial real estate investing?What an incredible time to buy! When I'm talking with people, if you're a Democrat, I'm going to play a Republican and if you're Republican, I'm going to play a Democrat. The purpose is, you don't need Yes folks around you. You need people who are going to work to broaden your thought process, challenge it and you get to sleep on it. Then, come back and tell me what you want to do, and we will execute.Before the Fed meeting, when they lowered the rates, I put in my residential newsletter that the best time to buy was 90 days ago. When the interest rates were hitting 8% was the absolute best time to buy residential real estate in California. You had no competition, and the sellers were scared to death, so you were able to negotiate lower prices. We're in Prop 13, and lower prices mean lower taxes forever. And when the interest rates drop, we know what to do then. Now that the interest rates have gone back up, the commercial real estate cap rates are up. "Why is that happening?" Because now they're not expecting the Fed to be continuing half-percent cuts because the news is out that maybe the economy isn't as stinky as mainstream media would like to talk about. Go back historically and you start pulling cap rates to get a perspective. Michael Ryanmike@michael-ryan.com

What type of industrial building is Chad Griffiths investing in today? What are the downsides of the industrial asset class? Chad Griffiths, Partner and Commercial Real Estate Agent at NAI Commercial Real Estate shares his knowledge.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/mre9kmt4What are you investing in right now?I like very simple buildings that can be used for multiple purposes, and my favorite is Flex Industrial. It is any industrial building in an industrial park used for other purposes than manufacturing or warehousing. One building that I have on a main industrial road used to look industrial until we did a renovation on it. We have an office tenant in there, a hot tub store, a flower shop, a cabinet store and we just put a bridal dress company in there, all are nonindustrial uses. Most people would never think of a bridal shop being an industrial building, but this building works for so many different types of uses, that if we have a vacancy come up, we might have 20 to 30 different ideas that people present to us in terms of what could work in the building.I love that in flex industrial the rates tend to be a lot more competitive than retail. If someone wants to be in the suburbs as an office user, you're typically going to be paying a lot less than being in a dedicated office building in the suburbs, and you could still have light industrial in there as well. It's versatile and it's somewhat removed from warehousing. The one that I have is more in the inner city limits. It's very difficult to build something next door to us to compete with us, whereas, if you have a warehouse outside of city limits and there's available land, you could go and build another building next door, and have the versatility of the different types of tenants, that's my preference. If I could buy one thing going forward, that's what I'd focus on.There are a lot of people who are opposed to data centers. Anytime a new one gets presented, it seems that there's an opposition group that are trying to fight it and get it blocked. I understand that pushback, but we need these data centers. AI is growing at a crazy pace. We need the data centers on top of it. There's a study that said that by 2030 data centers will take up 9% of the total US grid, that's double from what it is today, and that's already coming off of huge growth in the last few years, as these data centers have become more prevalent. They're taking up a lot of power, the forecast is for them to take up even more power, and they also need water, which is, I think, an under appreciated component of data centers. What are the downsides of the industrial?I've said to a lot of people, don't invest in industrial real estate. The biggest thing is, if you make a mistake, it's magnified much more than any other asset class. To illustrate, imagine if you were to buy a 15-unit apartment building, and you bought it in a good area, in a city, you're always going to have tenants in there. You just might need to lower the rent a little bit. If it's $1,200 and you say, "I just want to have I want to make sure my bills are paid." and you undercut the market at $800, you'll always have tenants. It's a matter of what price you need to accept. In industrial, if you buy the wrong building, you might never find a tenant. There are horror stories that I could tell of guys that have bought a property and they've sat vacant for years. If you do that with a single-tenant building, perhaps for the equivalent price of a multi-tenant apartment building, and it sits vacant, you lose 100% of your revenue. Chad Griffithswww.industrialize.comwww.youtube.com/@industrialize

What are the latest news in industrial real estate? How to predict what kind of industrial will be in demand in the future? What are some characteristics of an industrial building that would allow you to have different types of tenants? Chad Griffiths, Partner and Commercial Real Estate Agent at NAI Commercial Real Estate shares his knowledge.Read this episode here: https://tinyurl.com/mvnjh5spWhat are some of the latest things happening in the industrial asset class?What I find so fascinating about industrial real estate is that it's such a wide variety of activities and subcategories of industrial. Ten years ago, most people just grouped industrial as one big asset class, and they'd talk about it at a very high level, and that was it. But now, we should be breaking industrial into more subcategories, because if you look at the warehousing or the logistics side of it, that's gone through a pretty big roller coaster on its own that's independent of other subcategories. And just to give you an example, there are so many warehouses, distribution centers, and logistics facilities that went up so crazy over the last couple of years that in some large markets, they were adding 10- 20 million square feet of warehouse space every year. And now, some of those markets where they overbuilt, there's too much inventory. Their vacancy rate has gone from very low to being problematic in some areas, and it's going to take some time to work through that.If you look at other subcategories of industrial, manufacturing has still done quite well and it is coming back to North America. Manufacturing and warehousing have been on different paths. There's a new one that has only come up within the last few years, which I think deserves its subcategory, and that is the high-tech industrial which could be EV factories or gigafactories, which is a kind of broad term they use to describe battery factories. Tesla has their gigafactories, that name is kind of extended to other companies as well. You also have semiconductor manufacturing plants, like high-tech labs. Essentially, these aren't manufacturing facilities, if you were to picture Boeing making airplanes, that is traditional manufacturing but these high-tech ones are completely different and there are billions of dollars being invested. TSMC is doing a multi-billion dollar facility in Phoenix, and there's another one going up in Ohio and Columbus, they're popping up everywhere and these are massive facilities. And then the other one that you have is data centers which are growing at a crazy pace.How do you keep up with that as an industrial investor? How do you look ahead and try to understand what you should be investing in the future?There are two primary things that I do myself. First, you need to be in a city that has population growth for the foreseeable future. It can't be that there's population growth because there's one major project going on, and then once that project is done, perhaps jobs leave with it. You need to be in a big city where there's optimism that the population growth will continue. Population grows, everybody needs more stuff, they're shopping more, they're doing more online shopping and so warehouses and industrial investment follows population growth.The second thing is to invest in properties that have multiple uses. If that one tenant that's in there, or multiple tenants that are in there, whether it's at the end of their lease, or they go into bankruptcy, or they get bought out and they just no longer need it, they eventually leave. I want to make sure that when that tenant leaves, that building is suitable and compatible for the next tenant without me having to spend a ton of money retrofitting it.Chad Griffithswww.industrialize.comwww.youtube.com/@industrialize