Hello all and all that are somewhat interested in real estate or what is going on with this crazy market! I am a real estate professional if you will or thats what they call us, us being the ones that are licensed realtors and brokers. I happen to be one of those said professionals currently living in South Beach or otherwise known as Miami Beach Florida. I currently own my own office Triton Commercial Realty and have been doing real estate for about 6 years now.
I jumped into the market at the the beginning of the height and the action was constant. I remember sitting in the my first office and being a newbie I really had no clue as they do not actually teach you much in real estate school, go figure. All they really teach you is all the core law that you have to know as not to break any and get massive fines or jail time. When you become a licensed real estate agent, you have to be taught everything for the most part about real everyday transactions from your office. Now My broker offered absolutely no training at all and basically said, Ok, sit here pay attention and try to catch on. I was as well told that I was not to take a floor call or shift for 2 weeks till he felt that I was ready...
Well that did not last long as on the 3rd day of having my license, I happened to be the only one in the entire office of about 30 agents for some reason, I think it must have been lunch time or something. Not even the secretary was there if I recall. I remember an older couple from Rhode Island walking through the door and telling me that they wanted to buy 2 or 3 condos! Oh Crap! I had no freakin clue on how do do this. I had only seen someone get on the MLS (multiple Listing Service) once before yet alone how to draw up a contract or all the stuff that goes along with it, as you might know if you have ever bought a house or something like it in the past.
So luckily at least the secretary came back and showed me some very basics on how to search and print off listings, so I did and that day sold them 3 condos. 2 in South Beach in the 180,000 range and 1 in N. Bay Village in the 228,000 range. Hot huge sales but for me it was especially being on my 3rd day! Well by the time we made it back to the office, I was able to have one of my fellow associates help me write up the contract and show me what all had to be done, which turns out is a ton of paperwork that most folks have no clue about. I have now learned that selling the deal is the easy part, its the "Sheparding" it through that can take months of endless phone calls and worrying that it will fall apart that sucks.
Since then it is been up and down as you can imagine. I did a few more residential deals after that learning new stuff with every new contract. I got kind of bored doing residential so I decided to jump into the commercial market and have remained there every sense.
My first commercial deal was a 20 unit art deco style building in North Beach, the northern most part of Miami Beach. In this area there are non stop 30 to 40's style art deco "gems" as some call them. More like art deco crap if you ask me. Old and falling apart and mostly termite and roach infected with window AC units and horrible jealously style windows. Nothing Gem about them really. Well anyways, I sold one for 1.2 million and made a 30 grand commission. All my associates said whatever you do do not buy a car with your first check so what did I do? I went straight to the BMW Dealership and bought a car outright lol Why? Because I could.
Since then there has been many commercial deals, hotels and apartment buildings and franchises for T Mobile stores. I went in partners with a fellow agent that is a very aggressive in sales and is a known "closer" and we were working on what would be the deal of our lifetime and still maybe so lets keep our fingers crossed. We had a investor from Tampa Fl. that wished to buy an entire executive center that looked modern and that was at least 12 stories high. Well we located a wonderful building that was not listed on the market and is what is considered in the industry to be a "pocket listing" which happened to fit the bill perfectly...
Talk about a royal pain in the ass, come to find out this guy was trying to buy a 15 million dollar executive center with very minimal down. He was also saying that a small bridge style loan for 3 million would have to happen in a 5 day period thus releasing the main loan behind it for 100 million. With that money he would purchase the building outright. All this in a 10 day period and buy another building a 18 unit shopping center for 6.9 million.
Well 10 days turns into 3 months of long distance calls everyday and massive amounts of paperwork that was thicker then the bible that had to all be copied and mailed... all, trust me is a pain in the ass but again what did I care I was going to make some mad cash from this deal or so I thought. In the end I was scheduled to make a 500 grand commission off the guy and his 2 deals. I already had my new car picked out and the Mercedes dealership! Well what ended up happening was... he was having issues getting the first bridge style loan approved as he was not willing to place anything substantial down in collateral which is standard. Standard is at least 20% of the the amount of the purchase, guess how much this clown was willing to put down... only 50 grand opposed to the million or so that is usually required. Well the sellers of the buildings finally became very upset with this guy as he was looking and making us look like a couple of dumb asses. So they decided to just drop him and now he has just vanished back into the hole he came from. Was it a scam? perhaps. Trying to buy a 15 million dollar building with nothing down is a balsy move.
Well needless to say the old saying is true. "do not count your chickens until they hatch" lessoned learned
I had another deal with a 2 story building downtown Miami that was only a 2.6 million deal but it was very interesting as it all went somewhat smooth up until the closing. I'll never forget this... Here we are all of us sitting at the closing table my buyers were From Holland and the sellers were from Venezuela. The seller had one of his cousins doing is attorney duties which seemed to not really be 100% up to par. At the closing table with the closing attorney ready to go, we are trying to get all the paperwork all lined up so we can get this all done and somehow some papers get lost or messed up to where now there are gaps in the process. Well this up sets my clients and they end up calling the Venezuelan attorney incompetent! Oh my God, you should have seen the emotion coming from that room. They began yelling and screaming at each other saying that never would they do business together now as they have insulted their entire family! The closing attorney and I were crying, well not really but we should have been as a 30 grand commission just slipped right through my fingers.
lately I have been doing a lot of Francaise work, trying to establish a few more Taco Bells and trying to get a Sonic drive through down here as they run the television commercials for it here in Miami but the nearest Sonic is in the Orlando, so go figure.
I am sitting on sevarl large pocket listings now that are hotels and large business mostly being bars and night clubs, so hopfully soon something there will stick. Also have been doing several small rentals just to have some extra money flowing in. Rentals suck cause you do all the work as a residential sale and get really no money for them 400 here 500 there for a ton of crap. lol can you tell that I love doing rentals.
I guess my be all end all goal is to hire about 15 to 20 very well trained associates working for me to do all that stuff for me, As of now I have 3 that are cranking out rentals but not producing crap other then that so I need to come up with a plan and fast.
i have recently been looking at all the "foreclosures" & "short sales" markets here and also in mid America as there are a ton for cheap cheap and I am thinking about scooping up a few and just sitting on them for a few years till the market re coops and it will trust me! As things progress I will post on here with day to day happenings or if something crazy goes on which always seems to be the case so stay tuned! So what is the lesson here? counting chickens before hatching and being sure to put your good deposit down or you will not be taken seriously.
Triton Commercial
Friday, March 14, 2008
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