Commercial Real Estate: Starting From Scratch

Send me a message!Interesting podcast with some good updates, moving closer in the right direction.  Feels good to be moving forward instead of backwards, and being this close to signing very valuable leases that will completely change the pace of this building and my life.  These 2 leases will increase the value of the building by 600k, which would increase my net worth by 300k, which is just hard to fathom.  Stupid silly problems dominated my day today, but such is life.  Roof is getting closer to being done by the day, and my pool business is closing in a few days!!! CMON BABY!!!!  Lets keep this momentum going!

Send me a message!BOYS AND GIRLS!  We're making moves baby!!!!  Roof started to get done today, swamp cooler guys going out there tomorrow to scope it out, things are shaking!About to sign a lease for Tenant 2 spot and a portion of lot 3!  Overly stoked on the tenants, looks like it will be a great fit for everyone.  My pool business is  closing here pretty soon, I hope, maybe it might go through or just take longer?!?!  We'll see!I really thought this episode was going to be longer, but it didn't!  Oh well, see you guys next week!

Send me a message! I was out of town last week in Encinitas, CA enjoying the ocean and cool weather.  But the CRE fun did not stop!  Going over some updates on each property, and a major potential investor could change the path on both of these buildings.  Can't wait to see how that pans out.  Also found out during the podcast we are now truly WORLDWIDE!  A person in each continent has listened to this podcast.  Which may not be a big deal, but to me, it's a really special milestone.  I started this podcast for no other reason that just to do it, no plan, no motive, no real expectations.  So to see it growing every week, especially international is something I never thought would happen.  Thank you all for tuning in!

Send me a message!Had some good old breaking & entering at Thunderbird, $3,900 worth of damage for $20 worth of copper, a tale as old as time.  Sometimes I wish I lived in China or the Philippines so the gov't would just round up these useless heaps of garbage, and just remove them from the earth.  But, probably better that I don't, SO, on to the next.  Crackie damage is up to ~$5,500 so far on Thunderbird alone, hard to fathom.  Grand is FINALLY getting a new roof & swamp coolers, just working on the final details.  Been busy trying to lease up the empty spots.  It's been really hit or miss. It takes a lot of leads to get someone to get out there, and out of the people that make it out to the property, 80% have no business even shopping for a spot like this.  But the more hands you shake, the more deals you make!  So we're keeping on the path.  

Send me a message!Some interesting options for Thunderbird has presented itself.  Not quite sure how to take it all in, but has some potential.  Just like anything else, there's upsides and downsides to it all.  Would need to get more final info to make a decision on how this one will shake out!  Don't forget to follow me on Instagram and leave a 5 star review!https://www.instagram.com/john.kleisch

Send me a message!Slower week overall, the last few months have been a lot so not too much to report.  Slowly getting ready for new tenants, moving stuff out, getting everything ready on Grand has been the big push.  Roof is getting done ASAP along with swamp coolers.  I'm trying to get everything done so I don't have to put it in the lease, not that it's a problem.  But the less stuff in the lease that I'm 'responsible' for, the better IMO.  TBird had some positive news, Regus the coworking space is interested in doing a master lease which would be pretty cool.  More details to come!

Send me a message!The times, they are a changin!  For the better, which is welcomed with open arms.  Have an agreement for tenant 2 to take over tenant 1, signed a lease for $1,600/mo for an outdoor covered area, and saved $12,000 on insurance.  OH AND I don't have to worry about the junk left behind.  I can't believe it worked out, now granted, no lease is signed yet, but we agreed verbally to all the terms.  Lots of work yet to do, but will keep everyone up to date!

Send me a message!That title is somewhat sarcastic, maybe 50%.  The eviction has been completed, but the work has just begun.  Getting this shop empty of stuff is my #1 priority for the time being.  Every day that spot needs to produce $250+ per day, so every day I'm NOT making $250 and that drives me bananas.  

Send me a message!Evictions have been dominating my life and this podcast as of late.  So we're talking about another topic!  It's been a while since I've spoken in-depth on Thunderbird, so the timing was perfect to get everyone caught up on that building.  Also spoke about another business I own and some updates on that as well.

Send me a message!For starters, this didn't get uploaded last night, not sure why.  Ugh, delays with eviction on my end.  Hopefully we can get the ball rolling and get our spot back this week.  Next week would be a bummer.  Got some really bad news on Thunderbird, and some good news too!  Life is crazy, real estate is crazy, wouldn't have it any other way.  

Send me a message!It's been a busy week, and my tool belt is getting more and dangerous as we move forward.  Now I'm well versed in the eviction process so when it happens again, it won't be so overwhelming.  Side note, if I do a really good job screening tenants, shouldn't have to do many of these, but I know this won't be my last.  Everything is set up for eviction day and will roll out the plan once it's ready.  By next podcast I will have done the eviction and will report how fun it was!

Send me a message!SO!  Boys and girls, here we are now facing an eviction.  This has been going on for a while now.  Some weeks I thought we'd avoid it, and some weeks I knew we were going to do an eviction.  It was pretty close but at this point, we've seen enough.  Time to move on, cut our losses, and get ready for a new tenant.  Lots of possibilities to move forward and I think it will work out for the better, at least in the interim.  If you couldn't tell, I'm a bit fired up and swear just a bit in this episode!

Send me a message!I haven't touched on Grand or Thunderbird recently, mostly because they've been on cruise control. But some recent events have caused a stir!  So good for content, bad for my health and well being!!  Non paying tenant issue at Grand, new lease signed for Thunderbird, and very bleak action on the main lease hunt for Thunderbird.  

Send me a message!Well, I wrote a description and it didn't upload for some reason!  First draft was excellent, what a shame.  I have 2 active deals I'm currently working, I go over each one, pros & cons and break down my thoughts.  Not even sure I should be actively hunting for deals, but it is what it is at this point.  

Send me a message!One of the many reasons people avoid Commercial Real Estate is the lack of active income while building a portfolio.  Of course there are ways to do it via CRE but for the most part, it doesn't make reliable money on a monthly basis in the beginning.  In fact, I've experienced money going out, further enhancing the problem.  In this episode I talk about what I've been doing about the active income portion in my life, and how that plays into the CRE game.  For me, I was lucky enough to basically take most of my time and pour it into CRE for the last 6 months.  But now, that clock has ran out.  Before I got into it, I knew I had a short window of operating before I needed to focus on active income again, so it's no surprise.  Also working on increasing passive income to reduce to the amount of active income I need, which means I can spend more time working on CRE, which is the ultimate goal.  

Send me a message!2025 was a major year, maybe the biggest of my career.  Starting to build momentum, things are starting to work, and a reminder that it takes a bit longer than you think. 1 year of making intentional progress in the right direction is good, but 4 more years of that and we'll be heading towards a much different trajectory.2026 Objective: Focus on true, real cash flow, $4,000 minimum, stretch objective, $7,000  Can't wait to document it all along the way!

Send me a message!Short week, Tbird is for real almost finished. Carpet finished end of last week, cleaning ladies finished on Tuesday, we hired a broker to list the office for rent. There's legitimately less than 8 hours of work to get Tbird done, and that's really exciting.  Any podcast now I may have an update on getting Tbird leased up, that day will be worth celebrating for sure.  Until next time, Merry Christmas!

Send me a message!Thunderbird is so close to the finish line I can smell it!!!  Not sure what it exactly smells like, but it smells GOOOOOOD!!!!  We agreed on terms with the existing tenant which is great for both of us, and had a fantastic walkthrough meting with the brokers that are going to lease the property for us.  All around good news, which doesn't happen quite often.  And enjoying the small victories when they come.   Also, I said my first swear word in 16 episodes which is just absolutely wild it took this long, considering my vocabulary mostly consists of pirate/truck driver words, sorry Mom!!!!

Send me a message!Semi joking here, flooring is done and looks fantastic, couldn't be happier.  The contractor was fast, efficient, and did an excellent job.  I hope I have more buildings that require flooring, I would use them 10/10 times.  Final push to get the remodel completed, few more days hopefully to get 95% done.  Razor close to getting a new lease signed for the small suite.   Busy busy busy!!!!

Send me a message!Thunderbird remodel is in full swing, flooring crews are prepping the floors for the glue down LVP and doing a fantastic job.  The main sticking point has been color of flooring.  The trim work in this place is gorgeous, but colors do not match well with it.  And come to find out, companies don't make a ton of options in glue down flooring since the click/lock is so popular.   Floor coloring has eaten up a majority of my week, and finally, made a decision that cost about 5k more, SO BE IT!  

Send me a message!Thunderbird is moving along nicely.  Some things coming under budget, other issues popping up that cost thousands.  Pretty standard for a remodel, especially for flippers with very mild experience.  Common sense goes a long way, and being around friends that flip hundreds of houses helps out for sure.  I'm guessing 30 days from today we'll have a finished product.  

Send me a message!Never a dull moment in real estate.  I'll tell you what, so many times in life, I've chose to do things that are painful(mentally & physically), and then I continue to do said things over and over and over again.   But I have a feeling this will be worth it. So much pain and anxiety was felt over the last 2 weeks of this deal.  Was supposed to be smooth sailing easy peezy, but here we are. My partner John said it best, this is NOT for the faint of heart.  Enjoy the episode

Send me a message!Final walkthroughs are not supposed to be exciting, but this one was!  About $22,700 worth of excitement!  Found damage to the building in multiple spots, crackie break-ins, water heater leak, damage to 1 office, fun times! 

Send me a message!Deal #2, Thunderbird, the office building was supposed to close today.  Waiting on lender docs for 2 days now.  Whenever I hear that I just imagine the lender playing video games all day just not doing anything at all and using lender docs as an excuse.  Real estate deals are usually pretty fickle and this one is no different.  I hope we can close this week because I'd like to get started ASAP.  In this episode I go over all the numbers and projections, lets check back in a few months and see if I was accurate!

Send me a message!We hit 50 downloads!  Crazy to think of 50 people listening to this show.  Mostly good news so far this week, getting close to funding on the office building, which is supposed to close in 6 days!  Grand Ave is moving along in a good way, collecting rent is nice!  Had a major shift in overall plans with these buildings and investing in general due to a meeting with my mentor.  Getting deals presented to me without searching for them has been nice. Thought we had a chance at getting a good one, but lost to an all cash offer with a quick close.  Next will be 10 episodes, HOLY COW!  Would love to do something special for it, but probably won't, maybe when we hit 100 downloads I'll do an interview with a CRE stud.  

Send me a message!I have left the Collective Genius mastermind.  It was an extremely tough decision that took me forever to make.  I owe everything real estate related to CG in countless ways.  Beautiful thing is, I can always rejoin.Finally we have some good news about BOTH projects!  

Send me a message!The ups and downs of CRE are no different than normal residential real estate.  Sometimes is awesome, sometimes is blows chunks, and sometimes you question all of your life decisions.  I have been taking a beating the last few weeks on both of my deals, I go into detail on each building and how they've made my life fairly hellish.  However, I know this is temporary, a lot of these are growing pains that come with valuable lessons.  And ultimately, this is the cost of doing business as a beginner in CRE.  

Send me a message!We're getting so close to due diligence expiring, last minute tenant drama always makes it fun.  Trying to piece together 2 new tenants while under contract that will get us paid on day 1 of ownership.

Send me a message!I got my second deal UC a couple weeks after Grand.  Things are moving fast! This office remodel project will be a lot of fun and MUCH less work than Grand overall.  In this episode I go into detail on the deal, how I got it, and what we're doing with it.I learned a ton from my first deal that made this next one a lot easier to manage.  One of my favorite quotes is "It's only hard until it becomes easy" and this applies to deal #2!

Send me a message!It's been a long arduous road up to this point, building drama, current tenant drama, new tenant drama, many nights of no sleep,  no blood or tears but lots of sweat!  We finally did it, closing day is here.  

Send me a message!I got my first deal under contract!  I walk through all the steps I took to find it, talking with the broker, negotiating the deal, and the due diligence process so far.

Send me a message!In this episode I talk about my initial few weeks of calling brokers.  What I did, what I learned, overcoming fear, etc.  This was a major part of the first few weeks into Commercial Real Estate.  

Send me a message!A recap of my past and the path I took to get into Commercial Real Estate

Send me a message!Just a quick introduction of what to expect from this Podcast.