Announcing the DEALS IN PROGRESS Forum!
(This article submitted by Nancy Chadwick and Mark Reynolds (commercialking))
To advertise or not to advertise in the Forums on TCI – this has been an issue of interest and concern to both TCI posters and Moderators. If you have a property to sell the “Properties” section works very well. But what if you want a local partner to help with property management on a property far from your home? The “Properties” section is not very flexible. Although the Forums allow you to describe what you’re looking for in great detail, they don’t allow advertising.
Advertising in the Forums has been prohibited on TCI for a long time because 1.) It’s easy for a site to become overrun with junk (including ads), and 2.) The moderators have no way to sort out ads that are legitimate from those that are not. Members may think that TCI has investigated and approved of opportunities advertised on TCI. THAT’S NOT CORRECT! TCI and its Moderators do NOT verify that potential deals or the members advertising them are legitimate.
TCI is on the “cutting edge” of real estate investor sites. With the roll-out of the TCI Commercial site Joel became willing to try an experiment—a forum in which you can advertise.
We have constructed “Special Rules” for this Forum, but all other TCI Rules remain in effect: no fishing, no spamming, no hustling or playing guru, no group events, no YELLING, no bashing or personal attacks, no flaming, no personal contact information. When you go to the Forums section of the Commercial site, under “Deals in Progress” you will see a link to these rules:
1. THE ADVERTISED TRANSACTION MUST BE REAL AND SPECIFIC.
In other words, there must be enough information in the post for a prospective investor to begin to judge the nature of the transaction and its viability. The portion of the deal which you are advertising for must be clearly laid out. You can't solicit members through Forum posts, Private Messages or Email for deals that are hypothetical, imaginary or a fantasy or where you don't provide essential details (area location, property type, investment criteria, etc). This includes material in your "signature."
2. THE ADVERTISED TRANSACTION MUST INVOLVE A CERTAIN TYPE OF PROPERTY.
That is, it may not be a residential transaction of less than 5 dwelling units. It may be retail, industrial, office or other types of commercial real estate or it may be raw land.
3. YOU CANNOT ADVERTISE YOUR SERVICES.
In other words, no ads looking for mentors, mentees, clients or customers.
4. YOU MUST BE A PRINCIPAL IN THE ADVERTISED TRANSACTION.
You must have an ownership interest in the property - i.e., you cannot be a bird dog, RE broker/agent, attorney, accountant, lender or other consultant.
Protecting yourself from phony deals and people is still your responsibility, but the hope is that this Forum may help people hone their due diligence skills and also avoid scams. This Forum is very much an experiment. If it gets swamped with junk, it will be discontinued. The goal here is to make the Deals in Progress Forum a positive, useful and effective tool for you that will further enhance your real estate investing experience.
If you have questions about the Deals in Progress Forum and what can or cannot be posted there, please post them as comments to this Article, and we’ll attempt to answer them for you. In this way we hope that this Article can become a sort of “user’s manual” for the Deals in Progress Forum.
Thanks for putting this together guys.
Supportive comment - I like seeing TCI trying to branch out a bit and otherwise continue to innovate. Well done to both Mark and Nancy plus all the others who might have supported this behind the scenes.
To clarify as to the definition of commercial the DIP forum the follow are examples constructed to better test and therefore define the boundaries.
Anything that fits the above rules (specific and all the other things cited) for property that is classed as commercial would be included is what I am expecting.
Just to make sure...
What about notes, leases and other forms of an interest in commercial real estate? If an entity wants to arrange a sub-let or similar can this be posted? What about a portfolio of notes (mobile homes, residential, commercial or some mix) which is being presented as a portfolio deal rather then being sold off one at a time? Some of the notes would be for residential property but the portfolio could be seen as a commercial investment rather then the normal definition of residential.
As to 1-4 residential not being of interest...
If someone is selling a portfolio and has no intent of breaking it up (100 residential properties for example) I am assuming that the deal will be seen as commercial. Is this correct? Not sure that anyone will have such a portfolio and offer it here but just in case things take off...
One last example that is not clear to me.
What about mobile home parks and other entities where there is one title? I would expect this is no different from other residential deals that are 5+ units.
Thanks in advance,
John
Thanks, John for those words of support.
Turning to your examples, I'm impressed by your grasp of the issues. You have managed to pick the kind of "borderline" cases that Nancy and I used when we were trying to draft these new rules.
What about notes, leases and other forms of an interest in commercial real estate?
Depending, of course on the details I would probably let these go. At least until Joel puts up a system for listing notes like his current system for listing properties for sale.
If an entity wants to arrange a sub-let or similar can this be posted?
Within the next few days or weeks Joel is going to have an excellent commercial/industrial leasing service on-line (I've seen the Beta version and it is going to be a very powerful search tool). So my preliminary answer to this question is that such a sub-lease would be better off in that part of TCI than this one and, therefore, would probably not be allowed.
What about a portfolio of notes (mobile homes, residential, commercial or some mix) which is being presented as a portfolio deal rather then being sold off one at a time? Some of the notes would be for residential property but the portfolio could be seen as a commercial investment rather then the normal definition of residential.
Assuming that the portfolio contained either no residential units or more than 5 residential units then I would probably allow it.
As to 1-4 residential not being of interest...
Its not that 1-4 units are not of interest-- only that we believe that there are other locations on TCI where that kind of product can be adaquately advertised. I guess this is the most basic guideline in our minds as we constructed the new rules for the Deals in Progress forum-- there must not be another TCI oulet for advertising the product. Thus even a 50 unit apartment building would not be allowed in the Deals in Progress if all you wanted to do was sell it. The appropriate venue for that transaction is the Properties forum. If, on the other hand, you were looking for a local partner to manage the building then that could be advertised in the Deals in Progress forum.
If someone is selling a portfolio and has no intent of breaking it up (100 residential properties for example) I am assuming that the deal will be seen as commercial. Is this correct? Not sure that anyone will have such a portfolio and offer it here but just in case things take off...
Yes, because the portfolio contains more than 5 residential units it would probably be allowed. My only reservation is that it might be much easier to just list the whole portfolio in the Properties section at TCI.
What about mobile home parks and other entities where there is one title? I would expect this is no different from other residential deals that are 5+ units.
You've got it. An individual mobile home is verboten . A mobile home park which contains more than 5 units is allowed.
Mark,
I like the underlying assumption that if there is a good place already on TCI then there should be no real use of this new area for what can be accomplished there. That seems to provide a good floor for many decisions.
The other point that I am hearing is that if a commercial lender would expect to lend on it (as opposed to the residential side of the lender's shop) then it also would belong here.
At least until TCI creates the other venues that you mentioned.
John