Commercial Real Estate Investing

"Safest money investments"

JohnHanlin.com

What is Commercial Real Estate?

Most definitions provided for commercial real estate involve broad interpretations such as:

"Property that is solely used for business purposes. Examples are malls, industrial parks, gas stations, convenience stores and office towers. " (Investopedia.com)

And many people use the term "commercial real estate" interchangeably with the terms commercial property, investment property and income property as illustrated by the following definition from Wikipedia.com:

"The term commercial property (also called investment property or income property) refers to buildings or land intended to generate a profit, either from capital gain or rental income. Commercial property includes office buildings, industrial property, medical centers, hotels, malls, retail stores, shopping centers, farm land, multifamily housing buildings, warehouses, garages, and industrial properties. In many states, residential property containing more than a certain number of units qualifies as commercial property for borrowing and tax purposes.

Commercial real estate is commonly divided into four categories:

**Categories of Commercial Real Estate**
Category	Examples
1. Retail	medical centers, hotels, malls, retail stores, shopping centers
2. Office	office buildings, office parks
3. Industrial	industrial properties, farm land, warehouses, garages
4. Multi-family	multi-family housing buildings, apartments, etc.

Of these, only the first three are classified as being commercial buildings. Residential Income Property may also be used to mean Multifamily Apartments."

Commercial Real Estate Investing Options:

Commercial real estate investing includes a variety of investment options. (Click on the links below for details.)

Buying Existing Commercial Property

Commercial Property Development

Commercial Property Joint Ventures (JV) ** Author Recommended**

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT)

Tenancy in Common Investments (TIC)

** Commercial real estate investing can be very lucrative and rewarding. And each of the above investment options has merit. Each has its own set of positive and negative attributes which need to be evaluated by potential investors. But in this author's opinion, the option with the best combination of return on investment and investment security is: Commercial Property Joint Ventures (also known as JV's).

With commercial property joint ventures, you can invest as a "silent partner", earn a lucrative passive income and not know a thing about commercial real estate development, property acquisitions, property management, etc. This is also true of REIT's and to a lesser degree TIC's, but I believe they both take a hind seat to JV's overall.

So, I encourage you to click on the link for Commercial Property Joint Ventures (JV) and find out why I am bullish on this investment option.