Commercial Real Estate Investing From A-Z

What is happening with commercial real estate? Is now a good time to buy or will it get even better? How are the Fed rates going to play out? Ken McElroy, CEO and founder of MC Companies, shares his experience.Read this entire episode here: https://tinyurl.com/mryp72kvA lot of investors have bridge debt or value-add deals, we're seeing capital calls, you've been through 25 years of this, how are you looking at what's happening right now?What happens in a normal balanced market is: there needs to be a little push-pull between buyer and seller and what happened is that the buyers in the last couple of years were at a massive disadvantage, they had to stretch for pricing and for terms, they were shortening their due diligence periods, etc. It was all coming and what this is doing is, it's an adjustment for the sellers and that gets lost in cash calls and all of that. But we needed the sellers and the brokers to adjust their expectations. What was happening was that people were stretching for deals and many of those deals are the ones that are in trouble, so the market was not in balance.I have talked to one investor that has five capital calls going on, there's a lot of challenge, but it's really counterintuitive. A lot of times, it's the idea of being fearful when others are greedy and being greedy when others are fearful, as Warren Buffett would say. Do you think, with the cap rate expansion, are we seeing some better deals now or are we not quite there yet?We're not quite there. There's a lag effect with interest rates, with cap rates, with sellers and brokers and all of that. Playing defense and offense is a good analogy and I believe that you should be at all times. You should always be playing a little bit of offense, sometimes you're playing more offense, a lot of people right now are playing maybe a little more defense, but the worst thing that you can do is bury your head in the sand. If you're in this business for the long haul, I think that there needs to be a good balance there.What has gotten our investors to trust us over a long period of time is full transparency. We all know news can be a little slanted but it does stand to reason. If somebody's in that kind of trouble, how are they managing that? Have they been talking with their lenders? Have they talked to their investors? What are they doing on the management side because, for the last 22 years, the market has not gone up. I've seen it go up and go down multiple times. There are strategies for all of those things. There has been a tremendous amount of focus on influencers raising money online, I don't have a problem with that, however, if that's their only skill, then they have a problem and if the investors invested in those people, then that's an LP problem. When things like this happen, and it will happen again, you start to look at experience and wisdom, and how deep your bench is, your capital reserves, and all those things.What do you think about the Fed with rates?From everything I read and see it doesn't appear that the Fed would do that, and if they do, what are they going to go down to? Five? They punch all the way past 3, 4, 5, 6 and now they're approaching 7, so think how far they have to go. Even if they say, yes, we're going to reduce rates, they're going to do it at about a quarter point, half a point over time. Maybe if you're lucky, that could be a point in a year. You have to put things in perspective, they're not going to go from 6- 7% rates or even 8 for single family, in some cases, and hard money is way over that.Ken McElroywww.kenmcelroy.comwww.mccompanies.com

How to approach doing a capital call to your investors? And on the other hand, how should investors decide to give more money for a deal that is in trouble? Mauricio Rauld, securities attorney of Premier Law Group and host of Real Estate Syndicator Live, shares his knowledge.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/3mz7t22hA lot of people are in trouble, interest rates have doubled, insurance has doubled in many states, and some people have to do capital calls, how would you approach doing a capital call? And from an investor's perspective, how would you choose to participate in it or not?The first thing we typically advise clients is from my buddy, Ken McElroy, when things aren't going well and things are starting to not go according to plan because lack of cash flows don't happen from one day to the next because those things are going to slowly start happening, the key is to make sure that you double down on your communication with your investors. A lot of syndicators, especially new ones, tend to sort of stick their heads in the sand a little bit when things aren't going well, the investor is going to be upset at us, and we should not tell them, if you're communicating once a quarter and things aren't going well, start communicating once a month or once a week or every day, depending on how severe things are. That way, when it's time to do the cash call, it's not a complete shocker, you've slowly been showing what's going on, it's been a tough environment, we need to refinance, and we can't because the interest rates have gone up and the whatever the situation is. Letting them know earlier will be appreciated by the investors and you’re going to be in a much better situation.Try to avoid a cash call at the beginning. Usually, if there's the inclining of issues that happen, let's say, rents or revenues down because of whatever reason, then, the first line will be the syndicator. They'll make a loan to the company, they'll make a capital contribution to the project: 1) to show faith that they're confident in the project, 2) the cash call is the last thing you want to do. For both syndicators and for investors, as you want to look at the operating agreement. If you need $500k, you probably want to ask for $750k. There are a lot of funds out there that are really targeting they might come in and say, look, I know you need 500, I'm going to give you the 500 or I'll give you a million, but then they insert themselves way ahead of everybody else. Obviously, the bank is going to be number one always, but then they're going to be second and they're going to have their money out before any of the LP money comes out.Mauricio Rauldwww.premierlawgroup.netwww.youtube.com/@MauricioRauldEsq 

What are some of the biggest items that syndicators need to keep in mind? How to raise a fund yourself under your company name? Mauricio Rauld , real estate syndication attorney of Premier Law Group and host of real estate syndicator live, shares his knowledge. Read this episode here: https://tinyurl.com/yvk4k4e3What are some of the biggest items that syndicators need to keep in mind that are easily forgotten?Understand that you are in the business of selling securities, because a lot of times, especially new real estate syndicators, they don't quite understand that. I'm just buying real estate, why do I have to worry about the Securities and Exchange Commission or the SEC? I'm just getting a couple of my friends and we're going to go buy a single family home, or buy this building, why do we have to worry about all this stuff? People think of SEC as the stock market, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc but it is much broadly than that. TIC agreements, joint ventures, profit sharing agreements and promissory notes are potentially securities, I always joke that high fives and handshakes are securities but the structure itself doesn't matter. People try and get creative such as I'm going to structure it this way or that way, or it's just a loan, it's just my dad, but the reality is the SEC doesn't care about any of that, all they care about is whether you are raising money, where the returns are generated by your efforts. If you're raising money, and you're doing all the work, or you and your co-sponsors are doing all the work, and you have passive investors who are writing you a check, it doesn't matter how you structure it, and how creative you get structuring it, it's going to be a security and that's something that newbies forget.What would be a way to go around that, would it be to raise a fund yourself under your company name, and then invest in that deal if you don't want to participate fully on the operations side or other things?In order for somebody to come into the syndication group as a legitimate co-sponsor and bringing in some capital, there are three things they need to fit into because there's an exemption. The general rule is you need a broker dealer license, but we can find an exemption to registration and that would be what we call the issuer exemption which requires three things and most of these deals don't follow. Number one is no transaction-based compensation. This happens a lot, you have to be willing to say, I'm going to give you 10% of the GP even if you don't bring a single dime. I know you promised that you thought you were going bring a half a million dollars from your investors and it turns out, you aren't able to bring any, you still have to get that 5% or 10% because you're giving that person that percentage, not for raising money, but for other things they should be doing like any other syndicator: due diligence, underwriting, asset management and all these little ton of things otherwise it's transaction-based compensation. Your primary role needs to be those substantial duties, it can't be raising capital and you have to show that you're doing more than that. If you're a real syndicator, you have two or three partners, you're part of the team, and you're all working hard to make this deal work, then you're going to fit into that exemption.Do funds pay an interest until they allocate all of the funds, is that optional?That's the beauty of syndications in general and certainly with funds, you can be as creative as you want to be. I would usually recommend not making it super complicated, because then you start losing investors. Some people decide to give a flat fee, almost like a coupon rate.Mauricio Rauldwww.premierlawgroup.netwww.youtube.com/@MauricioRauldEsq

What do family offices look for in a deal? How do they manage their investments, are they risk takers or not? How are they evaluating deals in today's market? Irwin Boris is responsible for Acquisitions & Asset Management at Peykar Capital, he has 25+ years of hands-on FP&A, due diligence, and operations experience.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/4ycychyeHow were you evaluating deals when the market was hot and extremely competitive? How has that changed today?We stopped doing multifamily early, about four or five years ago, and we sold a bunch, we only hold one multifamily project that I'm involved with right now. People call to buy it every day of the week. I say, I got six years left on my mortgage, we only have renovated half the units, I really don't care, if make me a stupid offer, and we'll consider selling it because I have no place to put the money. We don't really care about it. I've been doing industrial for many years, it's a cap rate play. What's the spread between your going in, your current cash flow, and your cost to finance? If I could buy on a 9.5 cap, I could finance on a 7.5% and then get 65% leverage with some interest only, I could probably get 8.5 or 9% current out of the deal, after closing costs. That's really what I look at, if you can't do it on a cocktail napkin, don't do the deal.What are some of your hardest deals and lessons learned?There are always deals that die in due diligence. Hopefully, they die earlier than later because you have out-of-pocket costs. We have one deal that we really liked that was upstate New York, in the vicinity of Ithaca College, it sat on a lot of excess land that was zoned for industrial or multifamily, whatever I wanted to build there. Basically, the land was free, it was a covered land play with a lot of excess land where the current ownership had already gone through the PUD approval with the municipality. I just needed a site plan.In the middle of due diligence, the seller told me that their major tenant called them and said that they don't need all the space, they want to renegotiate the lease and give back 20% of the space. I said I don't want to deal with this now. And then the lender's appraiser found that was a sublet listing on Costar for the space. Unfortunately for the sellers, who were all in their late 70s and early 80s, they've owned this for quite some time, they asked me, what do we do? I said, you really don't have a choice but to renegotiate their lease now and ask them for another five or seven years before their options because three years from now, when they are up for renewals, they got you, and they'll tell you what they're going to pay. Here, you still have a little bit of strength. They ended up taking my advice, and they took back the idea, they brought down the rent a little bit, and they have seven years left before five-year options. But unfortunately, based on the revised income, I couldn't stand behind the price anymore.There's always going to be deals in due diligence that die in due diligence. And there's no way to flush those out in advance. One thing I do with commercial buildings is I like to get the 10 largest tenants on the telephone and interview them. How's business? How many people? What are you doing? Are you back in the office? Are you still remote? How's the square footage working out for you? You flush a lot of these things out when you have those interviews. Don't just rely on an engineering report, an appraisal, and the financials because the tenants are going to tell what you the future of the building will be after the close.Irwin Borisirwinboris@gmail.comJoin our investing club here: https://montecarlorei.com/investors

How to invest in medical office? How to find your tenants? What's the average TI (tenant improvement) for a small to medium size office? William Pozo, a podcast listener that has been investing in medical offices for several years, shares his knowledge.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/mjbhu6fmHow do you find your tenants?First, it's the size of the space. Larger spaces tend to be more sophisticated tenants that want to have leasing agents. Tenant reps inflate all my costs so they're dangerous from a landlord's perspective. The size of the space warrants it, or the sophistication of the tenant, because their build-outs can be complicated and the doctors don't really know what they want. Their spouses tend to be the ones making some of these decisions, it's very difficult when you have a very expensive lease combined with a sophisticated build-out and there's an education process. I've done the leasing with reps, and I've done it with brokers. If the broker is a good broker, you won't have an issue, and I'll be happy to pay their fee.Anything less than two or 3,000 square feet, I'm advertising it in front of the building. I'm putting the word out with existing doctors. There's a small group of community folks, these doctors tend to have a point person at their front desk, and they have a few important business people. If you put out the word out to a few of the larger ones, all these doctors, if they like your building, they bring those doctors with them because if you're an orthopod, or a pediatrician, or one of these sophisticated cancer doctors, they're looking for those physicians to be very close so they'll spread the word. But the larger ones that require hundreds of dollars per foot in additional capital tend to go to the reps or the brokers that can deal with that level of sophistication. I've done a few of those.What's an average TI for a small office and the largest office that you have given?If the doctor is willing to sign a long lease, and it's a reputable doctor, there is virtually no limit that I would not put them in, I will draw the tenant. In other words, I'll start at 10, I'll start to drive down at $20 to $30m but I'll go all the way up to 150, within reason. But if it's a reputable doctor that I know will draw his own clients and other doctors, it's worth it. The leases should not be less than three years, and that would be with no build-out or with near zero build-out. In the 5-10 years leases, I'm starting to spend money on the build-out. You'll have odd requests, special MRIs, or special PET scan scanners and those cost the building a lot of money, not the machine, I'm only talking about the build-out around the machine (the copper or the or the radiation field) that cost is very expensive. But once they've installed that equipment, it’s like a carwash, you can't take the carwash, it's the same thing for a doctor. Once a practice installs a machine, they will stay for 10 to 20 years, they're not willing to give up on their equipment.What should we keep in mind with regards to medical office leases?A lot of smaller guys are afraid of the lease, they're afraid of negotiating or structuring the lease. Don't be afraid of that, especially if you have direct contact with a doctor. You just come up with a form, go to the area's market and see if anyone has the forms. Don't let that be a challenge. That's the number one reason people don't invest in medical offices, they see it as something scary that they have to have these contracts, it's not an issue. Let's face it, these doctors are unsophisticated and straightforward. William Pozowilliampozo@gmail.comJoin The Advanced Real Estate Investing Summit: www.aresummit.com use code SUMMIT20 for 20% off!

What is the difference between a regular IRA and a self-directed IRA? What are the benefits of a self-directed IRA? Amanda Holbrook, from Specialized Trust Company shares her knowledge.Read this entire episode here: https://tinyurl.com/mtyykj3jWhat are the main differences between a regular IRA, for example, Fidelity or Vanguard, and a self-directed IRA?When you're at some of those big box companies, they will give you that old pat on the back stuff and say," Oh, Steph, you can go and pick your stocks, bonds, and mutual funds yourself". That is not true self-direction. To do true self-direction is to invest in what you know, and it's the same types of vehicles that you've become accustomed to Roth IRAs, traditional IRAs, 401 K's, and health savings accounts, the same ones you see over there, except when you shift over here. Instead of picking your little toys out of that sandbox called stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, we give you the whole playground. You can participate in a big commercial deal, be a private money lender, and own a rental property inside your retirement account versus the stock market. These things have been around since the 70s, and the knee-jerk reaction I get is, "Oh my gosh, this is crazy. How come no one in my professional roundtables ever told me about this?" And a lot of times, it comes down to money because a lot of those institutions don't get paid when you create an account and when you invest in opportunities in your backyard, when you put money on Main Street versus Wall Street, that's the big difference.Can we invest in other assets besides real estate?It's almost Pandora's box. The IRS, and how the codes are written don't tell you, "Oh, here are all the beautiful things you can do to take advantage of our tax code", they tell you what you cannot do. As long as you're not violating one of these cardinal rules, self-dealing, which is to buy something you already own, doing business with anyone up and down your family tree: parents, grandparents, spouse, children, off limits, if they branch off such as brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, they're okay. Your siblings can fund your deals, you can fund your siblings' deals, or stock of a sub chapter S company life insurance. There are certain things like collectible artwork that cannot be held. No artwork, no collectibles. Everything you can think of outside of that shortlist is doable: tax liens, private lending, precious metals, oil and gas, timber. I have brothers down west of Fort Worth, they breed cattle in their retirement account because it's what they know. Real estate is one of those three basic needs of every human on the planet. That is the most common but there's a million different ways you can participate in real estate.Amanda Holbrook(505) 514-0587aholdbrook@irastc.comwww.specializedtrustcompany.comJoin us at The Advanced Real Estate Investing Summit: www.aresummit.com

What is a cognovit clause? What are some of the main things that a borrower should be aware of in a loan document for a commercial property? Adam Lustig, head of the Real Estate Group at Bilzin Sumberg shares his knowledge.Read this entire episode here: www.tinyurl.com/nhzj3rmvWhat is a cognovit clause? How can that affect an investor if it is in a loan document?A cognovit clause is a clause in an agreement that authorizes the entry of a judgment against the defaulting party in the event of a default. It's commonly referred to as a confession of judgment. If the loan documents contain a cognovit clause, it allows for the lender to file suit against the borrower in the event of a default, and to immediately obtain a judgment without any prior notice to the borrower. Obviously, that's potentially a major problem for a borrower because they don't receive notice of default, they don't receive an opportunity to cure, and they don't have the right to raise any defenses or effectively to have their day in court.What are some of the main things that a borrower for a commercial property should be aware of with regards to loan documents?Most commercial real estate loans are non-recourse loans, which means that in the event that the borrower defaults, the lender’s recourse is to foreclose on the property. If the value of the property isn't the amount of the judgment, the lender does not have the right to go after the borrower personally, for the deficiency. However, lenders under non-recourse loans typically require what are referred to as bad boy guarantees, or non-recourse carve out guarantees. Principals who are signing those guarantees need to be aware of the circumstances under which they could have personal liability. Early in my career, bad boy guarantees were limited to truly bad acts like fraud and material misrepresentation, misappropriating funds, bankruptcy and similar bad acts. Today, bad boy guarantees have grown in length but many of those things do not necessarily result from a bad act of the borrower, they could be change in economic circumstances or more macro-economic things that could trigger liability. You have to be careful in negotiating the bad boy guarantee and those bad acts, because they trigger personal liability to the principals who are signing them.Top things to watch out for in loan documents:Lenders requiring not just a mortgage on the property as their collateral, but also a pledge of all of the ownership interest in the borrower. Clients have agreed to that, they signed it before engaging counsel, once they've agreed to it, it's really hard when you get to the loan documents to try to undo it but that is one of those traps for the unwary. With a foreclosure you have to go through the courts, that process can take six to 12 months. With a pledge of equity, the lender can do a UCC Article 9 foreclosure, which only requires 10 days’ notice to the borrower before a public or private sale of the property is held.Adam Lustigwww.bilzin.comalustig@bilzin.comJoin us at The Advanced Real Estate Investing Summit: www.aresummit.com

Where are opportunities in industrial investing? Is it through value add or development, single tenant or multi-tenant? Where are industrial buildings more in demand for: near major airport hubs, trains, or freeways? Amy Calandrino, CCIM, SSIOR, founding principal of Beyond Commercial shares her knowledge.You can read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/5d9yzvzm How can someone add value or create an industrial opportunity for themselves?Doing a gap analysis of what’s going on in the particular market that you’re looking to invest in and see what industries are happening there so you know what product you should develop, study how they have been leasing up, and at what rates. It's going to take a couple of years before it comes to fruition. I see opportunities infill such as ghost kitchens. Older B and C buildings sometimes become antiquated and if you feel like there’s a large enough need, building ground up is a good call. There's a big opportunity in refrigerated industrial because if you don’t build that from the beginning, you can’t always retrofit it, and that refrigerated space goes really quickly.Is there a location that is even more ideal for industrial: major airports, trains or freeways?For industrial, you want to be close to railways if you are getting a lot of products. I have a client that has 10s of 1000s of square feet and they are more in the northwest area because they don’t really need to worry about the airport, but they do get some product by rail that they work through. The most popular right now, if you’re doing a heavy distribution, it’d be more on the east side of town (in Orlando) so that you’re close to both the port, the airport and you have a rail. Having all the options makes it the most expensive. Regarding ports, the majority of traffic used to go come to California and it would have to work its way all the way across the country, we’re now seeing a lot more shipments going through the Panama Canal and then coming to the ports and then working through rail serve to get to people or even working up the river ways. My answer would be all the above, however, with a slight emphasis on ports on the East Coast are more valuable than before.Buying and selling industrial today:If you are not a cash buyer and you’re acquiring, or if you are wanting to sell, being much more creative in structuring a deal is going to create win-win opportunities. If you are a seller, perhaps consider the opportunity to provide seller financing, consult your CPA, but having an installment sale could be beneficial and that could keep you having some cash flow coming in and help to mitigate some of those losses. If you’re undercutting the bank by a point, it’s something that you can consider. I’m seeing more of that happening because if you’re going to the bank and you’re paying 7%, the seller may not get what they want, but I think that maybe the seller can get more if they look at doing creative seller financing. If you’re building anything new, understand that right now, we haven’t seen material and labor come down, I don’t expect any huge increases to the labor and materials as far as constructions, but it’s still high, so it makes it challenging.Amy Calandrino(407) 641-2221www.beyondcommercial.comJoin the Advanced Real Estate Investing Summit on Oct 19 & 20: www.aresummit.com

Today I share latest things I have learned, some updates on the ponzi schemes that are rising and what is new in real estate investing.Read this entire episode here: https://tinyurl.com/26msmatp1. There’s a clause that banks are putting in some of their lending documents that is called cognovit clause – google explains that a cognovit is a type of confession of judgment, it refers to an acknowledgment or confession made by a defendant that the plaintiff’s cause is legitimate. It permits judgment to be entered without a trial for the purpose of saving costs.2. Warren Buffet famously said “Only when the tide goes out do you learn who has been swimming naked”. The tide is out right now and we are starting to spot the naked swimmers.There are more ponzi schemes coming to the surface, it feels like it’s almost one a week. Here are the most recent ones:Real estate developer Robert Matthews has been sentenced to over five years in prison for multimillion-dollar frauds spanning multiple states, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Florida. The 65-year-old faced charges related to real estate scams that caused losses of over $30M to banks and investorsReal estate investor Sean Tissue was sentenced to six-and-half years in prison for fraud involving a $3M investment and bankruptcy.– As per court documents, Sean Tissue, also known as Sean Ryan, was the mastermind behind a substantial real estate investment fraud scheme between 2015 and 2021.A carbon capture ponzi scheme promising returns of ~ 40% yearly is being investigated by the SEC. They raised anywhere between 150-250M. This person was being a lead speaker at some real estate groups and he was the “carbon capture” go to person. In the news:Clutter, a storage and moving startup once valued at ~$600M in 2019, is being forced to sell at a steep discount in an auction of its assets. The premise for Clutter was that they would come pick up your items, they’d take pictures, and they would move it all for you into a warehouse far from your main city to avoid high real estate costs, and store it for youWeWork casted substantial doubt over its ability to continue operating amid liquidity and profitability challenges. WeWork told investors that the next year would be a make or break for the company. Sam Zell said in the early days of WeWork that he has never seen a model like this work (where they commit to a long term lease, but their customers are on month to month contracts).Office leasing in Manhattan increased by 20% MoM in July to reach 2.3 million sq. ft.Manhattan’s retail market is showing signs of improvement, with a growing number of tenants signing new deals.Asking rents in Miami grew 12% YoY to reach $65.03. Availability of Class A properties in Miami declined 20.6% YoY.The Mortgage Bankers Association predicted that commercial and multifamily mortgage lending would decline by 38% YoY. What do I see here? So many opportunities! There are 40% less transactions being made this year, less competition, better deals, time to buy!I recently started using this excellent tool, tango.us, for creating SOP’s (standard operating procedures). As your company scales, it’s extremely important to create SOP’s from the get go, so that anyone can come in at anytime and pick up any job. This is how a fantastic company is run.What’s happening to office?I’m hearing more and more companies are requiring 3 days in the office, some are requiring 5 days in the office such as Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, calling themselves a work from work company. Elon Musk is also known for demanding employees being in the office 5 days a week. Facebook and Google right now are demanding 3 days a week in the office and Google announced that it will consider attendance as part of performance reviews.Join our Advanced Real Estate Investing Summit! https://aresummit.com/ use coupon SUMMIT20 for 20% off both tickets--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

What is the step-by-step guide to build a real estate project from scratch? What are the best practices for the construction of self-storage, RV, and boat storage? What are some of the main legal items to keep in mind? Melissa Anderson of Forge Building Company, shares her knowledge.Read this entire interview here: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/y8sjpt89If someone wants to build a project from scratch, what would be the step-by-step that person would have to take, from who do they have to contact first, all the way to the team that they need to work with until completion?Once you see what the parcel is and what it sounds like, you’re going to identify what jurisdiction has authority, whether it’s a city, the county, or a township, and then you’re going to start talking to them, to see what is the approval process in order to build on this piece of property and to find out how they feel about self-storage. If you’re going into a municipality that has a really bad taste in their mouth about storage, they’re going to put up every hurdle they possibly can because they don’t want you to build self-storage and so, that is something to be taken into consideration when you are looking at that piece of property and before you close on.After you get it entitled, who should you start working with at that point?You have your property and title and the next phase is what I would call the design phase. That’s when you are going to have your civil engineer, your architect is going to start working on elevations, and a lot of the details of the building. If the jurisdiction has design requirements, that is going to be working up those architectural drawings to show that you’re meeting the design requirements of that municipality. For instance, let’s say that on the street front, they don’t want to see any of the metal paneling, in that case, you’re going to have to look at other exterior finishes such as stucco, Splitface, veneer, and they’re probably going to want it to be aesthetically pleasing. If you’re in an environment where they have very strict design elements that they want, to say that they want it to match the feel and the look of the rest of the city, then that architect is going to understand what elements to put into the construction documents. That’s what you’re doing during the design phase, you are building the construction documents that are going to give the subcontractors, it’s going to give them all the very specific details of what they need to bid on the project and what will be executed during the time of construction.What are some of the main things to keep in mind regarding legal when negotiating with anyone?time is really important, wanting to know how quickly you can get the project done, and what obligations each person is going to have for those. Having realistic expectations is important. I've seen this in projects where the GC really wants this job, and they'll say, "Yeah, we can get the project done in nine months." And now all of a sudden, that owner has that expectation of nine months. Well, as you start working with all the subs, it may not be that and so I really encourage owners to have realistic expectations. Then, the contractual amounts, when are you going to be paid?Insurance is a really big thing, making sure that the GC has the correct general liability and builder's risk insurance, and that they are also making sure that all of their subs have it. One of the biggest things is safety. Is it a GC that values a safe working environment? Are they holding their subs to the exact same requirements of making sure that they have a safety program in place, and that they have a way of enforcing it?Melissa Anderson(208) 286-8928manderson@forgebuildings.comwww.forgebuildings.comJoin our Advanced Real Estate Investing Summit! https://aresummit.com/ use coupon SUMMIT20 for 20% off both tickets--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support