Can you start on the commercial side, or do you have to own one first

The lead you just described is worth more than the expertise you don't have. You can rent expertise. You cannot rent a guy who calls you first because you fixed his rooftop unit at 11pm.

What I'd worry about is what happens between tie-up and assignment. On the renovation side that's where I got hurt every time. Scope you didn't price, a roof somebody told you had eight years left, a tenant who has a side letter nobody mentioned. In commercial the equivalent of scope creep lives in the lease documents and it will eat your fee.

@harrow is right about the lease documents. I came in from construction thinking I understood buildings, and I did, physically. What I didn't understand was that a building I could price to the dollar was worth two very different numbers depending on who was obligated to pay for the roof I was pricing. Took me an embarrassingly long time to internalize that.

@thatch you'll pick that part up faster than most because you've been inside the buildings. Read three actual leases end to end. Not summaries. Full documents with the exhibits.

Genuine question from the other side of the room. If that office and warehouse owner's tenants are renewing below his debt service, who exactly buys that from him? I keep reading that office is where the motivated sellers are and also that nobody wants office. Feels like @thatch's lead might be the hardest possible starting deal rather than a gift.

@marlow that's the thing though. The buyer for that isn't buying office, they're buying the warehouse half and pricing the office half at close to zero. There are people who do exactly that. They're just not on any list you can buy, which is why @thatch building a real buyer list matters more than his valuation skills right now.

I'm three months into building mine and the ratio is brutal. Forty conversations, maybe five people who I'd say have actually closed something in the last eighteen months.

Before any of this, what does one tie-up cost you if it dies? That's the question I'd want answered. Earnest money you may not get back, legal review of the purchase agreement, possibly reports. If the answer is twelve thousand dollars and you have room for one attempt, then you're not starting a business, you're placing a bet, and I'd want two or three attempts of runway before I put my name on a contract with a seller I know personally.

I own small multifamily and I'll say the ownership experience helped me in ways I couldn't have predicted and none of them were valuation. Valuation I learned from a spreadsheet. What ownership taught me was what a seller's numbers look like when they're tired, which line items get left off a seller statement, and how long a vacant commercial space actually takes to fill in a market like mine.

You can get some of that from being in the buildings, @thatch, which you have been. So I'd say partly yes.

The people I've watched move fastest didn't start alone. They found someone who could underwrite and split the fee. You bring the seller relationship, they bring the model and the buyer list. Costs you half of the first several deals and saves you the deals you would have blown up.

Dumb question I'd have been too embarrassed to ask out loud. If @thatch ties this up and can't find a buyer, what does he say to the owner? That's the part that scares me more than the money. In residential you're a stranger. He's going to see this man at the supply house.

That's an argument for not making your first attempt on a relationship you can't afford to lose.

@compass that's the sharpest thing in this thread. Starting from zero myself and I hadn't thought about which relationship I'd be spending.

What does tie up actually mean here? Signing a purchase contract you intend to hand to someone else? I'm asking because I don't know whether that's something anybody can do or something that needs a license, and I get the sense the answer changes depending on where you are.

@rigging yes, it means you sign the purchase agreement as buyer and then assign your position in that contract to the end buyer for a fee, if the contract permits assignment. Whether it triggers a licensing requirement and what you have to disclose genuinely does vary by state, and several states have added rules in the last few years, so that's an attorney question in your state rather than a forum question. North Dakota extended its wholesaling requirements to all real estate transactions in 2025 rather than just residential, so commercial isn't automatically outside the frame.

@thatch I'm the wrong person to advise on starting because I've analyzed for a year and done nothing. What I'll say is the analysis doesn't get easier at any point, you just eventually accept a level of uncertainty. Mine keeps not arriving.

Reading this whole thread the split isn't really about expertise. @sable's answer and @anchor's answer are both about how you survive attempt number one being bad. I've been trying five strategies on for size and commercial wholesaling is the one where a single bad first attempt costs the most, in money and in the relationship @compass pointed at. That's what makes me hesitate, not the cap rate math.

One practical thing. Ask that owner what he owes and when the loan matures before you talk price at all. If the maturity is close, that shapes everything and it may mean the lender is the real counterparty, in which case you're in a different conversation than a normal sale.

Trades background here too, @thatch, and the thing I'd guard is what the relationship is worth over ten years versus one fee. My service list is the only asset I actually own. I'd take @sable's route and give away half of the first one just to make sure the guy at the supply house still waves.