# Garage, lease or buy?



## Hawkfan12 (Dec 13, 2007)

New to the site and love it. Just wondering the pros and cons of each. What do most of you do? 


Thanks


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## andrewlawnrangr (Dec 3, 2004)

hey and welcome
i rent . but soon i will be buying. i will be buying befor i own a house (22 yrs old) i am goin to be in the Landscape business for the rest of my life so why hand money away and plus i can rent my property out to other ppl and help pay the morgage you have to look at what your plans are and what size area u need. good luck


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## Gicon (Oct 1, 2005)

I think he is reffering to trucks. I buy mine. No leasing for plowing


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## Green Grass (Dec 5, 2006)

We are building a new building in the spring a 60' by 80' shop


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## Gicon (Oct 1, 2005)

Try changing your title to FACILITY, or GARAGE rather than Shop. You might get some better results. Happy New Year.


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## Hawkfan12 (Dec 13, 2007)

Yeah that title isnt very clear. I was speaking of a shop/garage. How do you change the tiltle.

Thanks and happy new year too.


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## hydro_37 (Sep 10, 2006)

Start a new thread


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## JD Dave (Mar 20, 2007)

Your best choice is to buy but some areas are to expensive when your first starting out. If your going to rent, get something very reasonable and save your money.


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## Dstosh (Dec 30, 2003)

I am kind of in the same position as you. the building I am looking at is for rent and forsale. At the end of the day, You dont have anything to show for all the money you pissed away for rent. If I can get a mortgage approved, I'd Like to buy. I'll settle for rent though because I need some space.


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## LawnProLandscapes (Nov 15, 2007)

im in the same situation right now. i dont have room at my house for my backup truck and plow and all of my hand tools and such i use. im having trouble locating any space to rent and have only found one space and they want $800 a month to rent it, and in my area thats a little bit high... its not even that large of a building.


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## MIDTOWNPC (Feb 17, 2007)

Easier to buy a house first. In most cases you will easily be approved for a house mortage. A commercial mortage is harder to get beacsue they want proof that you can afford to pay the mortage ontop of your existing. WIth a house its like ok well you pay $600 a month rent now and you can prove your income so bam why not own a house for $600 a month mortage payment, or whatever. I would buy a house that will little effort you can fix up and either refiniance for a small lump sum that you could then use as a down payment for a shop or sell the house and pocket the cash and keep looking.

If you want to hear my story just let me know and I will show you how I bought a junk property for $235 000 with $15 grand down and turned it into a property valued today at $799 000


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## Charles (Dec 21, 1999)

No need to start a new thread now. Title changed for you


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## Gicon (Oct 1, 2005)

I rent at the garage pictured on my website behind the trucks. www.ShrewsburySnowPlowing.com Garage is 80' x 100', 10 doors, all 14'. Two bays are specific wash bays with the floor pitched into floor drains. Its worth every penny to me becuase in the winter time you always have a warm place to go melt down your trucks and clean em up.


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## Hawkfan12 (Dec 13, 2007)

MIDTOWNPC;484217 said:


> Easier to buy a house first. In most cases you will easily be approved for a house mortage. A commercial mortage is harder to get beacsue they want proof that you can afford to pay the mortage ontop of your existing. WIth a house its like ok well you pay $600 a month rent now and you can prove your income so bam why not own a house for $600 a month mortage payment, or whatever. I would buy a house that will little effort you can fix up and either refiniance for a small lump sum that you could then use as a down payment for a shop or sell the house and pocket the cash and keep looking.
> 
> If you want to hear my story just let me know and I will show you how I bought a junk property for $235 000 with $15 grand down and turned it into a property valued today at $799 000


Im all ears


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## Hawkfan12 (Dec 13, 2007)

Thank you very much Charles


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## MIDTOWNPC (Feb 17, 2007)

First I read a book called rich dad poor dad. It woke me up. Then I found a run down property that had been for sale for a long time. I went to the land registry office and for $15 I found out that the owner, had NO mortage, meaning he owned that property out right and was in no real hurry to sell it sort of speak however, it was forsale. So I check my budget and it was... none. However I knew that the place had one tenant that paid rent and had been there for years. So his money was good and he was loyal and didnt want to move otherwise he would have. I wanted to collect rent one day in my life. So I put an offer in to kick this owners tires a bit and see how he responded. I had oh about $10 000 available and more comming if I sold some things. My offer was $0 down, Owner holds 100% of the mortage for 5 years at 5% and I pay him interest only on a monthly basis with no principal. It was hard enough to convince a real estate agent to present the offer however he did and the guy signed it back at I beleive it was $50 000 down 8% interest only montly and $40 000 every year in principal. I came back with my same offer and it folded. I now knew a little about the guy. He was retired, wanted a little spending money kinda liked the idea of getting an interest cheque each month, but didnt see it my way yet. I let the property sit over the winter, all the pipes froze in the carwash, the snow was never plowed and I found out the roof leaked. My kind of fixer upper  I saved, convinced my dad that if I could hook this one that we did the work, I fronted the materials, he put in the labour and once I got it on its feet he would get paid. That was his loan to me, the sweat. I put an offer in around spring, $15 000 down, 6%, $235 instead of $285 and interst only with yearly principal payments of $20 000 for a 5 year term. He signed it back wanting more down, and more per year, i signed it back same deal and told the agent that if he signs it back again I want to meet at the table with him, the agents put us togeather, He had done his reasearch about me, knew I had good street credit with very little money in the bank but built my business from empty boxes, had paid rent for 5 years to the most ruthless guy in town and that I had a father as a carpenter which was my ace. I told him he could change the price, change the interest rate, but couldnt change the money down or the structure of the idea. He then understood I was cash poor, equity rich. He signed the deal and this is why... he knew the tenant he had would be paying enought to me now to basically cover the payment to him, he knew I could fix it, he knew one day I could move there and save my own rent, he knew with improvements I could get a conventional mortage however now I couldnt cause I was so young and my income was low. He wanted out, it was too much work for him, he didnt want to wait till it was worth nothing. He saw himself in me a bit.


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## MIDTOWNPC (Feb 17, 2007)

*Sorry I Dont Get To Tell This Often*

I raised money for the closing costs and started plannin out what I wanted to do. I got a lease for the 1 guy and secured my payments. Immediatly after the deal closed I got approached by enterprise rent a car, saying they wanted to rent the place. They were trying to buy it but the owner wouldnt budge on the price they said. I just smiled and said no no he didnt. They signed a lease with me for 10 years, and the kicker was they wanted it done so fast they my final negotiations with them were "sorry but I cant have it done that fast, because I simply dont have the money to do it, so unless you come up with a year in advance of rent, then its over" They gave me a verbal in 3 days that the full year can be done if I gave them a 2% discount. YES PLEASE.. I know you are all haveing a hard time believing all this but I will post pics after. Anyways I slowly reno;d the place and 2 years later had it re appraised. I had made the old carwash into 6 units/ storefronts, ranging from 1500 to 600 sq ft, and I made and apartment that I could live in. I moved my computer store over and when it was appraised it had only one vacant unit. The appraisal came back at $699 000. Today it is fully rented, the leases are all extended and are all increased with increases each year, plus they just announced across the street that they will be doing re construction on the old mall and that means it will most likely be a larger grocery store and drug store and the rents there will be huge. That bumps me up and with the income it provides me the comparison is easily $800 000. The previous owner couldnt be happier to know he helped me suceed and was part of quite the story in town, plus he got paid what he wanted. its a good deal for everyone, my tenants who have good rents, and high traffic, my lender, and myself. Buy something you can put some sweat into, look other places then banks - they are gangsters dont even get me started, be creative, be patient - I paid rent for 5 years then decided to open another store and pay rent for another 3 years also. I saw this place as a dump - it took a book to make me look at the dump as a money situation. Newyears I said to myself there is no way I could sell this place because it pays too much and too many people are watching me now, they want to see me harvest the product and not run away. I also needed an agent to listen to what I wanted to do, not sell me something. He now brings me address' to go plow cause the house has gone powerofsale, and it has never been even shoveled and I get to look at it before anyone else does... heheheh Good luck, I'll grab some pics I am just playing on my girlfriends laptop right now.


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## LawnProLandscapes (Nov 15, 2007)

wow thats an awesome story. :salute:


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## daninline (Nov 1, 2004)

I like the deal you did!

I got my 1st house in bank forcloser for 83,000 fixed it up and sold it 5 years later for double and got a new house under bank forcloser with a 48 X 28 4 bays 14 ceilings and an office over one bay and land and a nice big house. I like the drive to work


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## MIDTOWNPC (Feb 17, 2007)

*Some Pictures*

This is just after I bought it. Basically stripped some of the siding off and cleaned up the lot, put a flower bed in and enterprise was already in. I was about flush even at this point.


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## MIDTOWNPC (Feb 17, 2007)

Flowers in - thats my brother workin on the company clock watering those babies, started to close in the carwash bays with doors.


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## MIDTOWNPC (Feb 17, 2007)

*appraisal*

this was at the point I had the appriasal done. The final garage door would eventually be my computer store, but at the time I used it to store materials tools ect while I saved up more money to keep going. I just had the parking lot sprayed black a few days before the appraisal was done to make it look clean.


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## MIDTOWNPC (Feb 17, 2007)

*computer store in*

I am now moved in and today, the whole plaza is rented and ontop of that cobourg autoglass downsized a bit and that gave me a total of 6 units plus my apartment which sits above enterprise's office and runs all the way to the back, and then an office laundry and bathroom onthe main floor. Entrance from the back. Dad and I did the stucco ourself and I choose that golden color after someone said, that place is a golden egg for you.


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## MIDTOWNPC (Feb 17, 2007)

the backyard is pretty big which I use to store stuff and I have recently been working on a way that I could budget and add to the building giving every unit an additional 300 to 400 sq ft and maximizing the full potential of the space. Plus adding 9 parking spots for a compond that enterprise will rent. Hopefully with in the next year my employee will take my apartment off my hands and I will buy a house that I can move into. However I must say I love the walk to work


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## MIDTOWNPC (Feb 17, 2007)

I bought this dump to fix up. My dad worked on it last summer and moved into it. We reno'd his house and staged it all fancy and it is listed now. Still have some outside work to do on the dump in spring but dad seems to like the location and thinks he should build a shop. We staged his and womanized it as we like to say. It helps when you girlfriend is the manager of paint for homedepot in the area 

AND THAT IS WHAT I HAVE DONE FOR THE LAST 3 YEARS, PLUS RUN A COMPUTER STORE. THE END. Its a crazy story, and I do owe my dad alot of credit for the sweat he has put in. Mom left my brother, myself and my dad a long time ago and we are quite the team. I could have gone to school, I was very book smart but the street smarts my dad taught me are far more valuble then a school education. Cheers boys, thanks for letting me tell it. Sometimes the best pat on the back is getting to I guess you could say brag a bit. Thanks again


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## musclecarboy (Aug 19, 2007)

Buy the biggest place you can and rent out what you don't need. Midtown demonstrates this theory perfectly. I had someone mention "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" to me but haven't read it yet, but plan to. I CAN'T WAIT to buy a place for my business. I'm only 16 now but feel i've done plenty of research and done intelligent things to set me up for a desirable future.

Think of it this way, would you rather pay off your mortgage or your landlord's?


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## Hawkfan12 (Dec 13, 2007)

Wow Midtown, what a great story. I will have to look into that book. The fact that you made that situation work for you is wonderful. I wish I could come across something like that. Once again thanks for the reply great work and good luck.


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## MIDTOWNPC (Feb 17, 2007)

Thanks alot.

Look at old gas stations. Just get the environmental report.

Remember you can go to the resistry office and for $15 you can find out the dirt on almost any property eg what is owed on it, who holds the mortage - if there is any and if there are multiple mortages. If a guy is asking $200 000 for the property and he owes $180 000then he is probably going to stick by his price if he can. However someone who only owes $100 000 might be a little more flexible.


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## v-plower (Dec 11, 2007)

Great Story! And "Rich Dad Poor Dad" is a must read!
My story is similar in that I started with basically nothing so I love to hear about other peoples similar success stories.
It just takes a vision and some perseverance and seemingly impossible things can be accomplished.

GL


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