Commercial Real Estate Investing From A-Z

In his first podcast interview ever, Robert Steele, author of 300 Ways to Buy, Sell or Exchange Real Estate, shares some of his top tips for buying, selling and exchanging commercial real estate. You can read this entire interview here: https://montecarlorei.com/300-ways-to-buy-sell-or-exchange-real-estate/ Let's go over the first two strategies of your book, which you mention are the most important ones to get The first one is called "Unpriced". The pricing is only in the eyes of the beholder. I encourage people to list their property unpriced - any price agreeable to the seller. They can give a range, $1,000,000 - $1,250,000 or $750,000 - $1,500,000. It's a range, perhaps, but the basic thing is unpriced. The person owning the real estate is trying to accomplish something. Now, if it's cashflow, you want a return of some sort, how much do you want? What is the target that you need to accomplish? Now, when they get into numbers, they get into cap rate sheets and things like that. In a pure exchanging, the cap rates go away. And it's what the person is trying to accomplish. I'll take you to number two in the book, which is called Creation of Wealth. You have a home, you have equity, and you'd like to buy another house, let's say, to rent it. So you have choices that you either have the cash in the bank or you could refinance your house or you could borrow a second on your house. The second would give you cash and you could go buy another house with it, or a duplex. By the same token, you could create a second on the house. That's the creation of wealth. Very simply, you could put a note in a trust deed, or computer and type out a note for fifty thousand dollars secured by a trust deed on your house in which you would trade that trust deed to somebody else that had another house that would take your trust deed so you could use a trust deed that you created without using any cash. Simply it's a piece of paper secured by the equity in your home. It's recorded against your title. It's a piece of paper and the piece of paper says I'll make certain payments on it at a certain interest rate. What you're doing is you're using part of your equity in order to buy another property, which you're not going through a bank, you're creating it yourself. In this economy, what are some of the strategies that you recommend us keeping in mind? I'd keep in mind the crypto currency, you could have a tremendous amount of wealth tied up in that cryptocurrency. If you go out of that crypto currency, you're going to be taxed. But if you deal with people in the exchange field that are knowledgeable in exchange rules, they can help you because they can take a million dollars worth of your cryptocurrency and then you don't go out of title. You keep it because that's the goose laying the golden eggs. You want to keep that. You can use that as security to buy some real estate. A knowledgeable broker could say, we'll take a million dollars worth of your cryptocurrency, use it as security and wrap it in what's called a blanket mortgage over the crypto currency and the real estate. So you're able to use it as though it's a million dollar down payment without going out of title. Now, the person on the other side has the security of that million dollars. You have to perform on your payments and your obligations, or you would lose it. The currency could be used as the source of security for your down payment into to three or four million dollars worth of real estate without going out of title. Robert Steele (760) 522-5362 itsinfinite123@gmail.com https://www.amazon.com/Steele-Ways-Sell-Exchange-Estate/dp/098951904X --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

What are some key things you must do when doing community engagement for your real estate project? Ilana Lipsett details 4 steps that are a must for every development, in any community. You can read this episode here: https://montecarlorei.com/4-steps-for-community-engagement-for-your-development/ When you get a community engagement project, what is the first thing that you do? I have a four step process that I like to lay out when I’m starting a project. The first is, get curious, show up and listen. And before the showing up and listening, it’s important to observe, ask questions and listen. People are the experts of their own experience, and that’s your job as a community engagement practitioner to deeply and empathetically understand what their experience is. So in order to show up, you have to ask who is already here, who has been here before, who’s showing up at your meetings at city hall, who’s responding to requests to meet and who’s not. And so a big part of that is showing up everywhere. Get to know local businesses, shop there, spend time there. You’ll start to meet regulars and hear stories, go to neighborhood meetings, go to town halls, go to gatherings. Before you start knocking on doors, it’s important to build those relationships by showing up in public and meeting people. And through that, you can evaluate if you need to be invited and go with a local leader who can introduce you to their neighbors or who can introduce you at a community meeting. Having buy in from the local leadership is really important. Having an established relationship before you do that. And so by showing that you want to be part of the community, by going to local events to block parties, to coffee shops, to bars, to whatever it is, it shows people that you are there and that you’re committed. And a key part of that is to not offer solutions yet. You’re still in this curiosity phase and getting a sense of who is here. What’s the history of the area? What has already happened? What already exists here that builds or holds community, whether those are events or meetings or parks. I feel like this may seem like an obvious thing to say, but you’d be surprised at how many post-mortems I’ve heard where developers say, oh, the biggest lesson learned was that we needed to talk to people and include them in the process. If the community has so much input and part of it is against what the developer was looking for, what happens? Part of it comes down to being honest and transparent about what you are and what you’re not, and what you can do and what you won’t do. When you do community engagement, one of the challenging components of it is that you aren’t necessarily going to get input that will be conducive to what you’re trying to do or you won’t necessarily get input that’s helpful or you’ll get input that is challenging your core beliefs or your vision or your mission. Part of it is not necessarily incorporating all of those pieces of the input that you’re getting, but it’s understanding how to best respond to them and how to best respond to the community. Transparency and communication is one of the most important things in addressing that. Having your community engagement process in place allows you to build relationships with your neighbors, with the community, with community leaders, so that when they do ask the hard questions or if somebody does come in with an objection, you’re able to respond to them in a way in which you are showing them respect, that you’ve listened to them and they’re showing you respect that they’ll understand and accept your answer. Ilana Lipsett ilipsett@iftf.org www.iftf.org --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

Learn how to find, analyze and learn more about micro markets for your real estate investments. Victor Menasce has been investing in real estate for the last nine years in both Canada and the United States, and has done all kinds of commercial projects. You can read this entire episode here: https://montecarlorei.com/how-to-find-and-analyze-a-market-for-your-real-estate-investments/ What are some market conditions that people should be looking for in real estate? I’m not actually a real estate person per se. I really think of myself more as a business person. When you talk to real estate people, they tend to get wrapped around the axle talking about things like comparable sales and things like that. And that’s useful, but it’s not the whole picture. I’m a much bigger believer in the fundamentals of the very simple law of supply and demand. If you’ve an excess of supply and a shortage of demand, you can predict what’s going to happen. Prices are going to fall if you have a shortage of supply and an excess of demand. And those conditions are going to persist. You have a really robust market from the point of view of an investor or developer, because there’s going to always be upward pressure on prices, upward pressure on rent, upward pressure on valuations. And that’s what I look for. I want to find markets, and when I say markets, I really mean micro markets. Micro markets where those conditions persist, they exist. They’re not artificial. They’re going to be there for a long time for some good reason. How do you come across these locations, typically? Is it someone that just mentions it to you, or you come across an article? It’s almost always through a conversation where someone will say something and we’ll say, that’s intriguing, and then look into it a little bit deeper and see if there’s really something there. Not only to see if those market conditions are there, but who else is in the market? Is it a market where it’s a closed market and there’s only two or three players? Or is it one that is open to other folks coming into the market and adding some capacity. We talk to a lot of investors every day, and I think most listeners of your show would agree that today, there’s more money chasing deals than there are in fact opportunities, at least at a decent price. And because there’s so much money chasing deals, prices are getting bid up into the stratosphere. Prices are getting bid up to levels that frankly don’t make sense. And my calculator works the same this year as it did two years ago, as it did four years ago. And it’s funny how for some investors the math changes, and it shouldn’t. When you are assessing a particular property, how do you approach it from it being a fit for the monetary goals of the project? Our focus is on things that are recession resistant, recession proof. I don’t want to be subject to the vagaries of a market cycle. For that reason, I won’t go into retail, for example, if I have a vacancy in a retail strip mall, that location could be vacant for a year or two if I’m waiting for that perfect tenant who’s looking for exactly that square footage. And then of course, you’ve got to do tenant improvements, you’ve got to do a build out. So you really are looking for that needle in a haystack type of perfect fit. One way is to find them. The second way is to manufacture them out of thin air, to create them. Victor Menasce victorjm.com Magnetic Capital – How To Raise All The Money You Need For ANY Worthy Venture --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

In this episode we learn how to move from residential investing to commercial / mixed use investing. Hanna Azar has been an investor since 2012 and currently manages a family portfolio of approximately 91 units, of which he co-owns 50. You can read this episode here: https://montecarlorei.com/how-to-go-from-residential-investing-to-commercial-properties/ What was your first deal like, and how did you transition to value add properties? Luckily for me I was in college in 2008 during the recession, and decided to buy a single family home in Palo Alto. I was a senior in college, I was 20, 21 years old, and that was my first investment in real estate. I bought it mainly for cashflow purposes when I underwrote the deal and I thought of appreciation as a bonus. But I quickly realized that appreciation in real estate is really what drives most of the value and most of the investment. And that's where I started shifting gears. I read a book by Manny Khoshbin, who is also a value investor developer, called How to Build Your Hundred Million Dollar Real Estate Portfolio. It definitely changed my mindset of what real estate is, what you can do with it, and how you should focus your investments and time. What drove you to move from residential properties into mixed use? I basically got the idea from the book, a lot of it just looking at the market, looking at where people were moving in the city and knowing that the scalability will eventually be the best strategy in the long run. Do you have any particular tips for people that are getting into real estate or that are beginners? What should they be doing and looking at? I think everyone's path in real estate is definitely different. I would say, all else being equal, I would start small, get your hands dirty, assess risks as much as you can before jumping into a deal. Go to meetups, listen to podcasts like yours as well, and try digging deep as much as you can before pulling the trigger. I would read as many books as possible look into ways that you could add value and find a niche. And I think that's sort of what we created in San Francisco with the properties that we've been buying, which most of them are in the Mission District. So we kind of felt like we have local knowledge. We know the buildings better, we know ways of adding value that works for our business model. I would say just try adding value, locate niches as much as possible, and try to force appreciation as much as you can, which is something I hope I illustrated. You should never wait to buy real estate, and just hope something will go up and buying it at risky prices. I would say look for properties, try to force appreciation through some kind of value add mechanism which in commercial real estate is obviously increasing NOI and look for scalability as much as possible. There are a lot of inefficiencies in real estate, which is the reason why I like it so much. There's all kinds of information gaps. There are ways that you can locate a seller before it hits the market. The pricing on the real estate is not efficient as well like the stock market, a broker might price something high on because he is out of the area, or he might price it too low, and it might be during the holiday season like it is now and not too many buyers show up because they're traveling. If you dig deeper, you'll definitely be able to find the inefficiencies. How to Build Your $100M Real Estate Portfolio: https://tinyurl.com/rgtyvmg Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur: https://tinyurl.com/ufp73vv Hanna Azar hannajazar@gmail.com 415-875-0177 --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

How to find the best retail leasing agents for your vacant space? What questions should you be asking them? Beth Azor has over thirty years of experience in leasing, managing, developing, redeveloping and teaching commercial real estate leasing agents all over the country. You can read this interview here: https://montecarlorei.com/how-to-find-a-great-retail-leasing-agent/ What makes for a great retail leasing broker? Someone that's not afraid to ask the tough questions. How much is it going to cost for you to open your business? For example, the daycare said $80/sf. And I said, OK, the building is ten thousand square feet. That's eight hundred thousand dollars. Then it's asking the second tough question, do you have the eight hundred thousand. As anyone in real estate, our time is our commodity. We need to maximize that to the best of our ability. So not being afraid to ask the tough questions. Also following up. Once in a blue moon, I'll help a friend who wants to open a location and I'll call a bunch of landlords or shopping center owners trying to find space. And it blows my mind how many people do not return phone calls. So: not being afraid to ask the tough questions, asking a lot of questions, because telling and selling and asking is, and then following up. I think those are the two most important qualities. Is there a specific set of questions that are important for us to ask them? Yes, asking them for a copy of their deal sheet for the last 12 months, or 18 months and then asking them which of those deals were new tenants versus renewal tenants? And then for all of those new tenants, how did you find them? Was it a call in off of the sign? Was it a cooperating broker? Was it a cold call? Was it a prospect, or was it a social media post? So really drilling down on how they found the prospect, because that is going to give you a clear path and understanding as to how they're going to lease your property. Are they just going to put up a sign and expect calls to come in? Or are they going to be extremely proactive in getting the business? Those are truly the most important questions. And then you have to feel good and have an instinctual feel that you can work with this person. And I would also ask that person for other clients that they work for that you can call and get a reference. Are they proactive? Do they call back? How are the negotiations? Do they negotiate on my behalf? Or are they always calling me and saying, well, we should give this guy an extra month's free or some tenant improvement money. Are they a true owners rep? Or do they want to be working on behalf of the tenant? Those would be the questions that I would ask a retail leasing broker that I might be considering hiring. What should a landlord keep in mind in order to be their tenants favorite landlord? Keeping the property clean, keeping it well lit, a very well lit and safe and secure shopping center is very important. I think my tenants like me, but if I don’t get the rent on the second of the month, they get a late fee. Now I’ve trained them. Being consistent is very important because you shouldn’t play favorites and give one tenant one thing and another tenant not the same thing. And certainly listening to your clients, for example mobile to go in the retail world is huge. You have to be reading up on that and thinking, how can I do something differently? How can I help my customers get more sales? www.bethazor.com https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8851653/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCswCXcTept82Ob6WmsCCtxw --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

In this analysis, I will be using a real property that I came across. It is a self-storage portfolio in Missouri. They had four properties and an additional property was in a strip mall, so they were leasing it. This property was interesting because it was in one of our target markets. You can read this entire episode here: https://montecarlorei.com/how-to-analyze-a-commercial-property/ We asked for the offering memorandum, sometimes the OM is readily available on the website that you find the property, sometimes you just need to sign a non-disclosure agreement before getting it. The first thing we do when analyzing a property is taking all of the financial analysis numbers and putting into a spreadsheet. That’s all of the existing income, and all of the expenses on the Excel spreadsheet. Everything is broken down as it shows in the OM. Some of the expenses for this particular property are: online advertising expenses, bank charges, employee benefits, insurance, here is a line item for the leased property that is on the trip center, payroll expenses, management fees, security expenses, telephone expenses, repair expenses, general and admin, utilities and the most important one, property taxes. Property taxes are the expenses that can kill deals for inexperienced investors. Why? Because the real estate agent is going to put the existing property taxes on their analysis. And typically you are buying the property for a higher price than what the seller bought it for. And so property taxes can double and sometimes triple as it is in this example. And if you don’t realize that until the last minute, or even until after you purchased the property, that can be a huge problem. So in this example, the real estate agent put the existing property taxes, and for a 3 million dollar property, these taxes were $20,000 per year. I asked the real estate agent, what do you estimate the property taxes will be at the $3 million purchase price? And the real estate agent answered $61,000. That is three times what they had in their financial analysis. This is something that you really need to be watching out for, for these type of deals, and also for other asset classes. As we have talked about before in the retail world, even though your tenants will pay for that tax, you really want to be considering if they can afford to pay for these additional taxes. And in the retail example, a lot of times they may have in their lease that the only increase in tax that they’re willing to pay is an additional 10 percent per year, for example. And 10 percent per year isn’t going to cut it if your property taxes are being tripled. Contact me here: https://montecarlorei.com/contact-us/ Subscribe to our newsletter on top of our website. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

Devin Lewis is a California Licensed Architect that has spent the last 10 years working with real estate developers determining the highest and best use for properties across the country, and around the world. You can read this interview here: https://tinyurl.com/uj4bqos What are entitlements? Entitlements, in a simplified explanation is what you, as an owner, are promising the city that you or someone that purchases your entitled design will build and it ultimately determines the value of the property. An entitled design is thought out enough to where the city can understand what will be built, what’s propose, what taxes it will receive from any of its operations. And the entitlements are based off of what architects consider a schematic design. So the design of the building will, after entitlements, develop significantly. And development for an architect means something different than development for a real estate developer. But the project will architecturally develop after the project becomes entitled with engineering systems. In order to entitle a project, you need a good idea of the square footage, the functions and what you have planned for that piece of property. What are some of the best pieces of advice that you can share with us in trying to get a smooth entitlement process as fast as possible in a very difficult city? As a property owner developing a piece of property, I think the most important thing is to strive to have an understanding of the process. As an owner, you could experience a great deal of frustration if you’re not aware that an architect is your agent and the architect really is there to help you facilitate the process and that process In most cities it looks like this. You’ll get a schematic design, go to the planning department, set up a meeting and you’ll work with different departments like the police department, the fire department, traffic, public works, sometimes the trash management services for the city to really make sure that at a high level, your project will fit in to the city’s fabric, the city’s functions, and the way the city will tie in to what you’re proposing. You’ll work with a staff member and you’ll present to the planning department. The planning department will actually grant you entitlements. If it’s a large project, it’ll be presented to the city council. When the staff member feels that it’s ready, they will recommend the project for approval. During this process, the architect is folding in the requirements and desires of many different parties. The city is going to bring its requirements and you’re going to meet with community members in community meetings, folding in their desires. Can they give an estimate of more or less how long it would take to get all the approvals from a particular city? We put together a timeline schedule for each project. Entitlement is a difficult thing to quantify in terms of time, especially in San Francisco, because the neighbors have such huge influence over what becomes approved. And it's a great thing that the neighbors have say in the character of their city. One of the main drivers for the amount of time that a project will take is CEQA, The California Environmental Quality Act which requires an environmental impact report for large projects. It's tough to say how long a project will take to get planning commission approval because the neighbors can form large, powerful groups and create lawsuits that actually will stall projects for a number of reasons such as traffic in their neighborhood, the density, and type of use that is being proposed. Devin Lewis dlewis@lpas.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinjameslewis/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

Dave Zook, an experienced real estate investor and syndicator will talk about the tax benefits of investing in real estate, as well as self storage, and a different kind of investment: ATMs. He has acquired more than $100 million worth of real estate since 2010. Dave has been actively investing in multi-family apartments, self storage, and ATMs. You can read the entire interview here: https://montecarlorei.com/can-you-avoid-paying-taxes-legally-with-real-estate/ When you understood that you could have a lot of tax benefits to real estate, what happened? What pushed me over the edge was that around the year 2011, I made my quarterly tax payments. I was getting the feeling that we might have a tax issue, but it wasn't totally prepared for what was coming. I got the call on April the 13th from my CPA saying that we took all the deductibles, you paid your quarterly payments, and you still owe $373,422. So I paid around half a million dollars in taxes that year. Prior to that time, I was having a lot of fun. I was busy. I was putting a lot of time and energy into the business, but it didn't feel like work. It was so much fun. But when I had to pay almost half my earnings back to the government, it wasn't so much fun anymore. After that, I realized during my research that multi-family apartments can be a really good tax shelter. I bought several hundred units of multi-family apartments and I've been tax free ever since. I haven't paid federal tax in a lot of years now. You are not alone in the real estate world, which is great. So let's talk about taxes. What are some of the great real estate tax benefits that people may not know about? The Trump tax law change that came through in late 2017, early 2018. There are some things there that really sweetened the real estate game for investors, and it now enables investors to take bonus depreciation on new or used equipment. Combine that with some leverage. Combine that with some cost segregation studies. It's a ridiculous amount of relief that you can get from investing in multi-family apartments. Can you avoid taxes forever? Or are the people who will potentially inherit some of these properties end up having to pay these taxes? That's a good question. I get that question a lot. There's a lot of people out there that think like I used to, that when you make a lot of money, you've to pay a lot of taxes.  The next question is, well, you've to pay the tax sometime, so might as well pony up and pay it now rather than later. And those two questions are almost the same. Yes, if you don't know what you're doing, then you have to pay a lot of taxes when you make a lot of money. If you don't know what you're doing, you also have to pay the tax sometimes. So you're only just playing the deferral game. If you don't know what you're doing, you're going to have to pay at some time. But if you're strategic, and you have a plan and you've good team members around you, you can make a lot of money and you can pay no tax, ever. As a syndicator, you actually are fundraising for a very interesting class which is ATM machines. Can you share with us how you came across that as an opportunity, and why did you decide to fundraise outside of real estate? ATMs is a form of real estate. It doesn't sound like it.  You're investing in an ATM location, and instead of having a building sitting on that real estate or instead of having thousands of square feet, you're getting a location agreement that 3 foot by 3 foot. So it is a real estate play, but you're extracting value from that 3 foot by 3 foot space Dave Zook info@therealassetinvestor.com www.therealassetinvestor.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

In the light of setting goals for the New Year, improving our personal lives, as well as our professional lives, we're going to talk about a course called the Landmark Forum that has had a huge impact in my life, as well as my friend Bronson Hill's life. Bronson has been investing in real estate since 2006 and is an active general partner in over 700 multi-family units. Link to available courses throughout the world: https://www.landmarkworldwide.com/searchResults?prgid=7&pgid=117&crid=840&ctid=-1&sdt=-1&ofr=true You can read this entire interview here: https://bit.ly/35DoNkb Why did you decide to take Landmark after we were having a conversation at an event earlier this year? I'd heard about Landmark from several people and they all were very successful people. Then I heard your endorsement when you said, hey, you have to take it, it's just going to change your life. I was like, OK, I guess I have to take it now. I guess it's going to change my life. That's what got me to sign up. I really didn't have much by way of expectations. I just kind of just went in with an open mind and the results of it were pretty profound. It really lived up to that endorsement that you gave that it really has substantially changed my life in the areas of communication, becoming more authentic, particularly in areas where I've been inauthentic with people, correcting some of those things, and really opening up all different types of new possibilities for business, and for relationships. Just pretty much in every way in so many aspects of my life. I have not found a personal development event that is better than this event. One of the distinctions that is near and dear to my heart was when they told us to, "Give up being right, even though we think we might be right." I was thinking what do you mean? If I'm right, I'm right. What do you mean give up being right? And I vividly remember when someone close to me said something, and I was doing my homework of giving up being right. So I was going to react to what that person said. And I chose to zip it. And it turned out that that person was saying something completely different than what I thought he was saying. So that has been super helpful as well. What other distinctions are now part of your life? Being right is an issue for a lot of people and of me, I've always right, but everybody else isn't. It's something that we all think that we're right. It can be hard to let go. And I felt like this gives a real, authentic way. And I keep using that word authentic. I think there's a lot of ways we can move forward, but we really lose connection with people or we don't really live out of a place of integrity with ourselves. And this program really gives the opportunity to walk in a way that feels more authentic, where you can actually be closer to people. And I've experienced that. I think when we can let go of having to be right, and this will give you tools on how to do that. Landmark Forum classes available can be found here: https://www.landmarkworldwide.com/searchResults?prgid=7&pgid=117&crid=840&ctid=-1&sdt=-1&ofr=true Let us know if you end up taking it: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steffbold/ Bronson Hill www,growingcashflow.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

In this episode we will learn how to find out about the political environment of a city that you’re looking at purchasing,  How to deal with bank problems? How to prepare and ride the next downturn? We are interviewing Michael Flight, an expert retail real estate entrepreneur who has been active in commercial real estate over the past 34 years. Michael has handled more than $500 million worth of real estate transactions. You can read this entire interview here: https://montecarlorei.com/how-to-deal-with-politics-problems-in-real-estate-investing/ How would someone go about understanding the political environment of a particular city? The best thing to do is, when you have it under contract, to call up either the building department or the Economic Development Department and say “We’re interested in buying this. And here are some of the things that we’re looking to do. So what’s it going to take?” Your local retail brokers or commercial property managers will also know how difficult the city is to deal with. Then the other really good way to get a handle on how cities are is to speak with individual tenants, or you’ll hear about it. Because we deal with properties nationwide, there are nationwide brokers. For example, the guy that represented Pet Supplies Plus does Pet Supplies Plus and a number of other national tenants across the country. So I can just call him and say, we’re looking at this area and I see you guys did a store down here, how was it for you? And he’ll say, oh, it’s fantastic. Or “I’m just going to tell you, won’t be able to get any signage out there and everything. You’ll be pulling teeth. And then they’ll come out just randomly and inspect you and then create all kinds of other problems which we’ve had in the past.” How do you sleep at night during hard times? I had some real issues with the downturn of 2008. On one of them was that we had a very conservative loan and I had started to renew the loan with the bank a year in advance, And all of a sudden, everybody that I was working with was gone from the bank. The last guy who was let go, calls me up and says that they’re not going to renew my loan. So then this new woman comes in and she says, you need to pay this right away and we’re going to come after you and blah, blah, blah. And they sent the default notice to my house and my wife opens it up and asks if we are going to lose our house. I said, no, we’re not going to lose our house. I called her up because I had done workouts before and I knew how to go about this. I said, look, I’ll move my loan in an orderly fashion over to this other bank. In the meantime, you’re going to extend my loan. And she said no, we’re not going to do that. And I answered, no, you need to listen. You’re going to extend my loan because if you don’t extend my loan, I gave her the name of my foreclosure attorney who was helping me out with some other things. And this guy actually argued about foreclosures all the way up to the Illinois Supreme Court. I said, “We will tie you up for four years, you won’t get any money, so we could do it the easy way, or we could do it the difficult way. I’m going to be out of here in six months. You can rest assured that if you touch any of my deposit accounts in the meantime and freeze anything, I will sue you, and I will throw all these other properties into foreclosure, too. Michael Flight www.concordiarealty.com/contact Want to become Steff's mentee? Tell me more about you here: https://montecarlorei.com/contact-us/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support