Thinking of buying a commercial building

The Old Guy

The Old Guy

Village idiot
Trusted Member
What are everyone’s thoughts on the current state of the commercial.

I’m looking just outside the GTA and stuff that was about $800k a few years ago is now down to just over $500k.

Is the market going to drop further ?

This would be a shop for my business but also for personal to work on an old car.

So let’s hear everyone’s input.
 
I have no idea, but for some reason I think our economy will continue to slow and prices will drop further, how much farther who knows. Maybe another 10-15%.

I am noticing the pull back of the economy at the shop. In 30 years I have always increased sales and customer numbers, last year we went flat, no increase no drop, this year we are down around 10% customers. People are getting tighter about what they are buying and where.

If you can get a decent building for 500k, shit I would likely do it. This way you have a home base. Store shit there, have a place to hang out if you don’t feel like going home yet.
 
Sorbate said:
I have no idea, but for some reason I think our economy will continue to slow and prices will drop further, how much farther who knows. Maybe another 10-15%.

I am noticing the pull back of the economy at the shop. In 30 years I have always increased sales and customer numbers, last year we went flat, no increase no drop, this year we are down around 10% customers. People are getting tighter about what they are buying and where.

If you can get a decent building for 500k, shit I would likely do it. This way you have a home base. Store shit there, have a place to hang out if you don’t feel like going home yet.
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Yeah maybe live there when it gets really bad. 🤦‍♂️
 
The Old Guy said:
I may go in stupid low on the place I’ve been looking at. Like a $100k under asking.
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Got nothing to lose, that is what I would do. I have done the same when buying a house. I was not overly attached with getting it so i lowballed and they took my offer. If they didn’t I wouldn’t have cared.

Hey you can do what my grandfather did at his meat plant. His office was like 1000 sqft and he had a full bathroom (shower) and a bed (you now the one that lifts up into a cupboard, and a couch and tv. When my grandmother died, he didn’t have the heart to stay at the house, so he sold it and lived at work for like a year.

The coffee room was down the hall and had a complete kitchen.
 
Sorbate said:
Got nothing to lose, that is what I would do. I have done the same when buying a house. I was not overly attached with getting it so i lowballed and they took my offer. If they didn’t I wouldn’t have cared.

Hey you can do what my grandfather did at his meat plant. His office was like 1000 sqft and he had a full bathroom (shower) and a bed (you now the one that lifts up into a cupboard, and a couch and tv. When my grandmother died, he didn’t have the heart to stay at the house, so he sold it and lived at work for like a year.

The coffee room was down the hall and had a complete kitchen.
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Guess my son will have to find someone else to loaf off of. 😜
 
I have a friend that did this. Fold up up and away is a Murphy Bed. In his instance establishing resistance there was technically not allowed however his neighbours liked him and said nothing to the city. He had a slot in a strip of a dozen. The property was registered industrial use with the city.

Another friend’s parents own 14 properties in southern Ontario. A few are industrial. Two are 6 plex residential and others. We were going to go in on a just over 100 door apartment in 2019 however couldn’t find anything reasonably priced. Way over priced on the market like they were selling a basement full of gold 😂 My point is that he was up and down adamant about an environmental being done from a top notch inspector who even traces back history. His parents found a great deal one time and everything looked amazing on the outside but when the environmental was done it came back a horror story! If they bought the place they would have been on the hook for incredible amounts of work and cost without guarantee of anything and if they tried to sell disclosure was mandatory.

I also tried to buy a property a few years ago. Unbelievable price, crap location. When I dug in I found out the property was deem “brown”! I would have been stuck with it, snowballs chance in hell of selling, impossible to decontaminate and would eventually have to surrender it to the city as there was nothing I could do with it.

$300k drop on $800 is a bit of a fire sale. I would dig mighty deep on the particulars. An offer with conditions such as an inspection and environmental in the offer contract 100% but I never put conditional on financing or sale of another property as waiving those conditions put me in a position of strength. I can always say it failed on detailed inspection but gotta watch the lawyers on that move. If you are going through a real estate agent they may not want to put their name on a lowball offer as they don’t want to offend or tarnish their reputation.

Ultimately it is up to you to decide what to do.
 
Are there any units available with a suite above? Kill 2 birds with 1 stone plus if it’s a tax write off even better 😉
 
flexappeal said:
Are there any units available with a suite above? Kill 2 birds with 1 stone plus if it’s a tax write off even better 😉
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Not really. This is a single story but does have a store front on a busy street.

Don’t really want to live there as my place is paid off and it’s pretty nice.
 
If it's under replacement cost it's worth looking at. Nothing is getting cheaper for a while, especially construction materials and labor. (At least here in the states) Imo
 
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