If you are a real estate investor or you’ve long wanted to become one there has never been a better time to get started. The good news is while 98% of investors are running after single family homes there are less than 2% of investors going after the real money. The easy and real money is in commercial real estate. 

The common belief is that you have to have a large network and lots of cash to get into commercial real estate. Nearly everyone who has bought commercial real estate who didn’t come from money has stumbled upon it or been shown the ropes on how to do it from those who already have it. 

I managed to get an interview with one of the top real estate coaches in commercial real estate to find out more about it. Austin Davis is well known in old real estate circles of commercial real estate and for good reason – he started with very little and has built a large portfolio of commercial real estate in the United States over the past 30-40 years. While using hardly any of his own money and keeping his own assets protected with trusts, corporations and keeping things out of his own name. 

When I asked him about how hard it is to get started he replied, “It’s much easier to get started in commercial than it is in residential since the property and funding for it is based on the ability of the property to generate income and not you personally it is a lot easier to get started. You no longer have to have a big net worth. The only real obstacle is knowing how you get the door open and yoru foot in. After you get your first deal and can show lenders you have property – it’s much easier to get funding for the new deals you find with little cash out of pocket.” 

I was very curious about this and so I started looking into it. I found that there are really few books or programs or coaches in the commercial property industry to give any insight on how to get started. I asked Austin about this and he replied “While many of the more public real estate investors are known for investing with little down in commercial real estate – they don’t really share it with people because honestly most investor’s in this niche don’t want more people getting into it. There is a fear it will hurt the industry if a bunch of newbie’s get into it a lot of “old money” that doesn’t like the idea of sharing the pie.” This made since to me and I wondered how credit, income, job status and assets would come into play on commercial real estate. 

Austin replied “All of that stuff doesn’t matter a lot while investors, banks and lenders are going to look at that what they really are looking for and wanting is to see you have skin in the game.” I had myself heard that before and it made since. After all if a bunch of newbie’s had nothing in a deal and the investor or bank had all of its money in a deal – that’s a lot of risk. I asked Austin to expand on that and he explained “If you can get a large cash down payment put in escrow for the deal the bank or investor is very likely to give you funding if the deal cash flows well and they know a cash down payment is being put up on the deal. The challenge is finding the ones who are alright with your down payment coming from any source. Many investors and banks will want you to put the money down out of your own pocket or to put a lien on other property you own. Those are what we call the non investor bankers and low risk lenders. There are many lenders who just want their equity protected and are alright with the down payment coming from hard money or private lenders. they don’t really care. They will of course only lend on strong property with strong cash flow that supports all the debt payments.” 

I asked Austin how I could learn more about this and he actually has a very easy program, it’s very short and to the point and explained the process and he even did all my home work for me in it with vendor contacts! You can check out his program as well at http://www.CREprogram.com/austin




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