Commercial Lease: Fill & Download for Free

Because renting a home is different than renting something non-essential that you use for only a few days, like a carpet-cleaner.People need confidence that they have a place to live which cannot be taken away from them at the whim of a single person having a bad day. This is good for all of society because most people have difficulty functioning without a stable place to live. When people are thrown out to the street without warning, finding new housing is their immediate concern and things like employment, school and other obligations are dropped until housing is sorted.Our legal system supports this principle in numerous ways. First, I should clarify that I am answering this question in the context of tenants who are renting their residence, as opposed to a commercial building. This is because US law (and most common law countries derived from the English system) treats residential tenants and commercial tenants differently. Commercial tenants have very few protections and most people would think that the landlord has the advantage in that legal framework. On the contrary, residential tenants are protected by their State's version of the Uniform Residential Landlord-Tenant Act. (Not every state has passed this specifically, and those that have usually modify it in some respect, but all states now have similar protections for residential tenants and it is a good place to start if your State's are not easily available online.)Even though the landlord tenant acts are considered modern reforms that appeared in the previous century, there is a firm basis in common law for these protections going back centuries. A leasehold interest in real property generally gave the lease holder complete title to the property for the duration of the lease (other than the ability to transfer title permanently - subleases were allowed). As long as the tenant was paying rent, the landlord had no rights to the property. The tenant could hunt the animals on the land, divert the water, cut the trees or harvest the fruits, take the oil and take any valuable rocks or minerals. The tenant had all rights to the property and was not subject to any interference from the landlord. However, this was true of all features of the property and if a large branch over the roof on a building fell through, it was up to the tenant to repair.The landlord tenant Acts were passed to modernize these laws while recognizing the fact that the landlord gives up substantial ability to control the property once it has been leased. Too many landlords have the mistaken impression that, because they own legal title to the property, they can tell the tenants what to do or have unfettered access to the property when neither are true. In fact, landlords lose those rights when they execute a lease, at which time the tenant gains those rights. When a property is leased, the landlord retains Legal Title, but the tenant gains Equitable Title. The Legal Title is the title of ownership and the right to sell, whereas the Equitable Title is the right to occupy and use the property. This Equitable Title forms the basis of tenants' rights as they exist today.

Tesla is a snowflake.Slightly naïve to consider any one thing as the reason for success. The magic comes from the right combination that makes the company/ product unique and hard to copy.The key elements:Branding- Tesla projects a lifestyle/ aspirational brand that resonates well across a wide cross-section.Manufacturing - simplified, optimized, automated. This drives down unit costs while allowing to scale, as can be seen with the proliferation of Gigafactories, each built out faster, bigger and better than the last.Lack of legacy costs- dealerships, unions, advertising. These $$$ can be deployed elsewhere. In addition, their manufacturing is not hamstrung by capital/equipment acquired to build cars from 50 years ago. Their management structure does not come from having to manufacture in the last millennium.Battery / Motor Tech. Probably best in class for commercialized product. Also, development of batteries supports other businesses like the stationary power business which supports the PV business. One strategic option is a pivot away from cars to batteries, supporting a variety of applications ( cars, backup power, etc).Software - driver assist is constantly learning with industry leading number of miles with real drivers/ real conditions. This feeds the neural network optimization of the self driving software. Engineers are also constantly developing better ways to extract more range/ power from the same hardware. If Tesla can win the race to level 5 autonomous, it is possible to license.Over the Air (OTA) updates- my car gets more capable over time with version updates similar to a smartphone.Supercharger network. Range anxiety is real. Having a proprietary network offers strategic options- build a walled garden ( today) or create new business/ income by selling the service to non-Tesla (future)?Internet sales. I hate dealerships. When you buy from a a legacy brand, you are defacto supporting all that overhead. Even if you bought the car online, all that cost has been baked in. With the dealership model of distribution, the consumer is paradoxically, the product! The dealers are actually the customer. OEM’s need to keep them fat and happy for mutual benefit. The purchase could even be seen as a loss-leader for more lucrative add-ons that come with it. Given the simplicity of EV design, there’s less need for maintenance, reduces the need for dealer network of workshops. You can buy a Tesla at the bar, on a smartphone in 10 minutes. It comes with competitive financing and delivery takes a few weeks. (Not quite the negative working capital model of 2000’s Dell but compare that with lots full of speculative models and useless options.) Buying a Tesla is more similar to ordering a new iPhone than it is, buying a car. I know people that waited 8 months for an Audi. A business model built around e-commerce is different from one built around dealerships that happen to offer internet sales.Speed. Clear vision and pursuit of the “move fast and break things” aspiration allows them to innovate, adapt and outgrow the competition. If you had a 100 Billion dollars, would you invest on Tesla or would you invest on every other automaker? Would you bet against Tesla taking more time to resolve an issue that came up on Friday morning? Tesla is in my opinion, the fittest, fastest competitor in the space they compete in.Rabid fan base. The free publicity translates into interest and incredible valuations. This gives Tesla incredible capacity to raise capital to pursue their aspirations.When Tesla Killers are discussed. They talk about one of these aspects. In truth, each point warrants its own dissertation. Having to tackle all these advantages is why all legacy brands are struggling and will continue to struggle.Tesla runs a different race, largely independent of the competition, which means they don’t waste energy thinking about what everyone else is doing. Rather, they can focus on running to their strengths, and building the best product. They develop and commercialize technology faster than their peers, are more organizationally nimble and have more strategic options available to them - support the electrification trend by focusing on supplying class leasing battery technology or support the autonomous mobility trend by supplying class leading self driving technology. This is the hallmark of good strategy- strong pillars that are individually difficult to copy, but form a synergistic package that is compelling and unique.Tesla is a snowflake…a beautiful form of water and ready to transform into a million possibilities to react to the dynamic world we live in.Edit 1- thanks to the feedback, I’ve added a little modifier after the catchy title to better reflect the intent of the article. I will continue to incorporate relevant comments into the article so please keep the suggestions coming. 100 upvotes in a day, 580 over the weekend? Thank you all for the support!Edit 2- thanks again for the amazing support and upvotes. Point 8- internet sales. Realized that OEM’s sell dealerships customers rather than cars. Evolving the idea of a snowflake to reflect infinite possibilities.I am interested in writing a similar article on the post Covid world. Please link or dm a question I can react to.

This is how I made millions while always considering my Return On Investment (ROI).If you want to make some real money on real estate investments, I will share what I have found my ROI's to be, and how I was able to speed my ROI's considerably, but the ROI on your deals can only be answered by you:You did the math when you bought your property. You did the repairs and you know the cost vs. the added value to your property. You know how much you put down on your property. You know about what your rental income is going to be, and you should have some idea of what you anticipate the value of your property to be in the future.When I was first buying, or building, residential units, I was fairly poor... not dirt poor, but I didn't have any extra money to do anything with. I had paid retail for a tract home that was around $52,000 and because of 17% interest rates, our payment was $750. The house was so poorly built and so poorly insulated, that our utility bill was also $750 a month. I had a young family to support and I was working in my business but only making around $2,000 to $3,000 a month for my family. I needed to start doing some investing as a side income. We sold our homestead for what we owed on it, in order to build an extremely well built $119,000 house with the same $1,500 a month payment even with the now only $250 a month utilities. When we sold that next house eight years later for $292,000 we used the $150,000 net profits, after paying off credit cards, and other expenses, to begin investing in real estate.When buying real estate investments, I would put down the least possible amount as my down payment. I would find the worst property, or lots to build on, that was on the best, or potentially best, street, or neighborhood, in the area. That allowed me to negotiate better terms on each unit purchased, because the current owners seldom wanted the worst properties. I negotiated hard, because I needed every last dollar. I would search the MLS online all night long. I had a great realtor that gave me the codes to the MLS, so I didn't have to bother him all night. I sorted by the least expensive properties in town. The most affordable properties would show up first in the search, making it a lot easier to find a bargain. The next morning, first thing we did was made our offers to purchase. I bought one house for $45,000, fixed it up and flipped it. I made $29,000 net. I owned the house a total of exactly four months. I felt guilty, kind of like what a criminal must feel, having made so much money, so fast, and doing so little to make it.If a lot to build on was a true bargain at $17,500 and it had just been listed that night, I offered $15,000 and I'd take two lots... if they would sell for cash today. Sellers usually took my offer. That doesn't sound like much of a negotiation, but I had just purchased two dirt cheap neighborhood infill lots (that I was offered $75,000 cash for three weeks later). Instead, I eventually built on the lots and then sold them. I ended up with $250,000 per lot, plus the construction cost.If you are familiar with the real estate term, "BRRRR", you know how I generally had my money back with a decent profit within one to two years.BRRRR stands for Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, and Repeat.I usually bought the property, and had some light rehab repairs so that I could lease it rapidly. I usually leased the properties a few percent below market so they would lease in the first week. $25 may not be much to you, but to a potential tenant, it can be the difference between being able to afford to live in your property or someone else's property. I would wait about six months to a year or two to refinance it, depending on interest rates and what projects I was working on. When refinanced, I would pull out just enough cash so that the current rental income still covers the PITI expenses on the property. I generally used the money that I pulled out of refinancing to purchase another property. I'll give you one of the examples on one of my favorite properties... not my most valuable, just a fun one:In 2001, I bought a smaller residential property in Austin, Texas, for around $55,000. At the time you could put 10% down on an investment property. That was $5,500. I probably spent another $2,000 or so doing light repairs to make it livable. I have about $9,500 total invested in the property when you include the title work and the closing cost. A bank owned the property. Interest rates were 8.5% APR. I offered to pay the bank 10% interest if they would sell me the property and "finance it for me so I didn't have to look anywhere else for a loan." They happily agreed to my terms.After one year of paying 10% interest, the rates fell from 8.5% to 5.125%. That's when I refinanced with another bank. I got a new mortgage loan at 5.125% interest. I had also let the new bank know that I was adding on to the house to take it from a two bedroom, one bath property, to a five bedroom, two bath property, by converting and framing in a cement slab that was for the current covered carport. The bank appraised the house as if the work was completed, and I received a new 15-year loan for $95, 000. My total to pay off the house and get the money back into my account was $57,000 plus closing cost on the new loan of around $2,000. So a total expense of $59,000, including my down payment, all the closing cost on the original loan and the new loan, and then I had a new loan of $95,000, I pocketed $36,000.I had more than tripled my investment in one year. That's a nice ROI. I invested 100% of that $36,000 into additional properties, and worked the same type deals on all of those properties. Eventually, I started acquiring commercial properties. It works the same with commercial units for the most part.Let's get back to my most fun property: I had a tenant in place that was making my mortgage payment and I was cash flow positive around $600 a month. I paid $12,000 to close in the space, add a bathroom, family room and three bedrooms. That was when it was leased for $1,600 a month. I'm pretty sure that I even refinanced that property one additional time and pulled out another $80,000 to $90,000 or so. Today, it's leased way below market rates for $3,000 a month, and it's paid off... but who knows? I may refinance it again and pull out another $350,000 or so. It's worth around $750,000 today if I were to sell it, but I have no plans to do that... ever. My total PITI expense on $350,000 at even 5.5% for 30 years would be less than $3,000 a month, and the tenant has already agreed to a decent rent increase and six more years on their lease. If appreciation continues as currently, that property will be worth over a million in a few more years.In the next two weeks, a different property refinance for $1.15MM will be completed. I've refinanced that property several times, each time pulling out between $120,000 and $1.31MM to use for additional investments. It was a $1,000,000 property when I bought it in December of 1990, but I paid $350,000 and put $35,000 down using an SBA mortgage loan... it's worth around $12MM today.Just remember: "BRRRR" and you should get the kind of ROI that you are seeking. If you will use leverage to your advantage, just put a little down, fix the property up a little, rent it a little under market, refinance it so that it still cash flows positive, and do it all over again, then long before you are ready to retire, it is possible that you too can have a decent rental income and a substantial net worth.