How To Get Started in Commercial Real Estate Series: Tip #6 Know Your Property Types

You're listening to commercial real estate secrets. My name's Aviva. These first 10 episodes, I am highlighting my top 10 tips to get started in commercial real estate. You see, as the leading internet personality about, that talks about commercial real estate online, I have made it my life's mission to share the secrets and strategies in commercial real estate, to end the gatekeeping, and to help people

like you or like me, create a foundational life of success and wealth through commercial real estate. This is episode tip number six as we count down from 10 know your property types. I want you to close your eyes because we're going under the sea. So you could tell I was just with my niece and nephews last weekend,

But I do want you to close your eyes and think about the little mermaid. I'm a redhead and I'm super thin. Just kidding.

I want you to think about an octopus. And the body of the octopus, it's commercial real estate. And each tentacle represents a different property type. So we got body of commercial and the tentacles, eight tentacles. Now.

Aviva (01:40.65)

It's not that there are eight product types. I just wanted a visual representation. There are an unlimited number of property types and we'll get into that. So here are a few product types in commercial real estate that people tend to specialize in. One, retail, think restaurants, shopping,

Aviva (02:10.271)

Thank you.

Two, industrial warehousing, that's what I do. Think warehouses or flex space labs or outside storage. Industrial's generally found around highways for access.

office space, right? That one's been in the news a lot recently. Is office space going to die? Probably not, but it is hurting, right?

You have land, so just raw ground is an entire sector in itself.

Multifamily, so apartment complexes. Anything for units or more is considered multifamily. There are people who just specialize in multifamily locally or nationally. Hospitality, so restaurants, but that's also considered retail or hotels, motels.

Aviva (03:13.17)

Another tentacle could be specialty. Okay, what's specialty? Specialty is like churches, campuses, sports facilities. There's all these different product types and people generally choose to focus on one.

Aviva (03:37.09)

I hear all the time, I invest in residential real estate. Residential is for people like me. And it makes sense, right? It might be everything you've ever known. Maybe you bought a house and so you know how to transact residential real estate and you're comfortable with it, right? Or maybe you don't know somebody who has transacted commercial real estate, but you have someone in your network who has bought a house, right? So,

It seems so much easier to just approach a residential real estate deal as an investment.

You don't know what you don't know. However, if you just stick to residential real estate, you are limited in more ways than one. First off, I could, trust me, season two is gonna be all about why residential real estate is inferior to commercial, but the laws are a lot more favorable to the landlord on the commercial side. It's a lot easier on the commercial side.

a lot less emotional on the commercial side. And you can scale, right? It's significantly more difficult to scale with residential specifically because you're generally not making as much money because the landlord's responsible for a lot more in residential leases. And like I said, we're gonna go into that a lot in season two, but what you need to do

learning product types. And all you have to do is start looking around you when you're out and about. When you're driving, start looking at properties and say, what is that? Maybe you're driving down the highways and you start to notice the warehouses, right? That are always along the highways.

Aviva (05:37.65)

The funny thing about commercial real estate is that it's literally, I call it hidden in plain sight, right? We use it every single day. We drive by it every single day.

but a lot of people don't even realize it's there. And the coolest part about it is you don't have to stick to one product type, right? Like, I know a group of investors who love to buy restaurants. They buy restaurants in insane locations because they like their foodies. They like the product type. It works for them, right?

What I do is just warehousing. Why? Because I've done other product types. I did office space. I didn't like it. It was too, it was too much detail and drama. I wanted simple, which is why I went into warehousing. And you know what? Maybe one day I'll change my mind. Maybe one day I'll go into self-storage. Another product type. So,

Aviva (06:47.69)

You have to understand that you need to know the product types, but you don't have to make a one size fits all call today, tomorrow, or in 20 years from now. And you have to realize that the status and as a society, our needs are changing, right? With the internet, we have the ability to buy online, which is completely changing the way that humans consume real estate. We, post COVID got

shot into a society that needs way more warehousing than there is available in this country. But now there's too much office space and there's too much big box retail. We don't need that anymore.

So it's really important to understand that you have to be malleable in this industry.

and you have to be ready to zig when they zag. Find value or maybe other folks won't find value.

Commercial real estate is a creative sport and there are no wrong answers unless you're losing money long term or you're doing the wrong thing to people. You always do the right thing and you never do a dumb deal.

Aviva (08:07.911)

Do you have questions for me? Head over to my Instagram at Aviva Real Estate and DM me any questions you have.

If you want my free guide on how to get started in commercial real estate, head to my show notes for my freebie, How to Get Started in Commercial Real Estate, and stick around for our next top 10 tips to get started in commercial real estate, money, talks, how to get it, and where to get it. We'll see you in the next episode.