Dustin Maher

Social media vs reality.

Social likes to show the jets, car, homes, vacations when selling the real estate dream.

Yes, if you do it right… over a LONG period of time, you can have all that.

The reality is the day to day operations aren’t very sexy.

Here are just a few of the things that Tessa and I are working on/dealing with the past week or two between our 11 properties.

-Energy company who unexpectedly turned off our parking lot lights in one of our commercial buildings and it been two weeks without explanation on what is going on. Dealing with upset tenants about this.

-Eviction notice to tenant not paying/late.

-Dealing with plowing companies bc of tenant complaints.

-Collecting information on energy improvements we have made (LED conversion, and updated HVAC) to apply for energy credits.

-Doing due diligence on an auction retail property I am looking at. 15 hours of DD so far.

-Following up with a property tax challenge.

-Working with bookkeeper to close out all 2023 books on our 12 properties/businesses.

-Communicating with CPA to get them everything they need to start their tax prep.

-Reaching out to insurance brokers to try to get reductions in insurance costs.

-Following up with inquiries on selling a few of our properties.

-Following up and collecting property taxes for reimbursements from tenants

-Communicating with current banks to optimize the returns on the cash that are sitting in the accounts.

-Communicating Q4 updates to investors

-And much more…

The point is that much of commercial real estate investing isn’t sexy or exciting. But it is the details and management long term that long term wealth is created.

Don’t believe the lie that you just buy a property and you get mailbox money.

You can do that and buy an absolute NNN starbucks ground lease for example, but then your returns are about as good as a 10 year treasury.