Five customers have offered to put money into buying my shop building. I don't know if that's allowed

I'm early in all this so I can only tell you what confused me for months. Accredited means an investor who meets income or net worth thresholds set by securities regulators, and offerings that rely on certain exemptions limit how many non-accredited people can participate. The 35 number your chamber lunch person quoted comes from one specific exemption and it doesn't apply to every deal. That's a securities lawyer conversation, genuinely, before you collect a dollar.

Separate from the legal side, five investors in a single owner occupied building is a lot of people to have opinions about your yard. I'd take one or two and structure the rest as debt if I needed it.

What's the yard worth on its own? You mentioned controlling it almost in passing but if you're on a site with usable outdoor storage in a market where that's scarce, the land might be the whole reason to buy and it changes what you're willing to pay. Check the zoning on it too, since what you're allowed to store or build there is a local ordinance question and it varies parcel to parcel.

Three separate questions are tangled together here and they get answered by different people.

The securities question. Taking money from other people in exchange for a share of profits from an entity you manage is generally an offering of a security, and how many investors you can have, whether they must be accredited, and what you must disclose depend on which exemption the offering uses and on state law where your investors live. The 35 figure and the accreditation point both come from that framework and neither is a general rule. A securities attorney answers this and it happens before you accept any money.

The structure question. Debt and equity behave differently for you. A lender gets a fixed return and no say. An equity investor shares the upside, shares a loss, and usually has some governance rights written into the operating agreement. With five investors and one owner occupied building, the operating agreement is where you decide who can force a sale, who approves a refinance, and what happens when one of them wants out in year four. That document matters more than the rate.

The business question, which is yours alone. You compared 4,800 of rent to a payment on 700k of debt. That comparison is incomplete without the items a landlord currently absorbs. Roof, structure, property taxes if your lease isn't already passing them through, insurance, and the capital reserve for the yard surface. Get the last three years of the building's operating expenses from the seller before you decide it's a wash, and confirm current loan terms in writing with the bank rather than working from the 25% figure someone quoted verbally.

The accountant's brother thing would stop me cold. Investor who arrives through someone you rely on professionally is hard to disappoint and hard to remove.

Something practical. If you do take equity, write down now what reporting you'll send and how often, even if it's one page twice a year with the rent roll and the loan balance. People who put money into a friend's building and then hear nothing for eighteen months start inventing stories. A boring update on a schedule prevents almost all of it, and it's easier to commit to before you have their money than after.

Asking the thing I'd have been embarrassed to ask: why does thatch need investors at all? He's got 120k, he needs 250k, and he's got a profitable eleven person business. Is a second loan or an SBA route not the obvious first call before he brings five people into his ownership?