What is a good budget?
When we look at budget we look at not only the acquisition cost we look at two facets:
- What is the remodel cost in terms of general construction, equipment, furniture, décor, signage, sales tax and design fees.
- And then we add this to the acquisition costs (the purchase price)
- At the end of the day these two costs need to be “cost efficient” and add up to your “budget”. I find that most people have a general idea about their budget but unless you have done a number of restaurants the “budget” is mostly an abstract number based on very little experience, data and facts.
Important Terms in the Lease Contract
- More than likely you are not going to significantly adjust the terms of the lease unless the current tenant (the seller) is not going to make it and the sale is more “fire-like”.
- Terms that can be really important can be the length of the lease as well as the rent and cam. Many of the terms in most leases are somewhat boilerplate to all leases but occasionally we will see something that is really odd and we then want to discuss it.
Do’s and Don’ts
- Don’ts
- Don’t get emotional
- Do’s
- Do your homework (see above
- Be mindful and take your time in decision making
- Project out your sales, operating expenses and rent/cam to see where your break even point is.
Why an experience agent matters
- An experienced agent especially one that understands how to do projections as stated above is vital to you making a good decision and keep you out of “hot water”.
- Most buyers think the selling price is too high and of course the seller thinks the price is too low (only human nature). Somewhere there is a happy medium. If one tries to negotiate this on their own it spells less than satisfactory experience. The experienced agent has done this a number of times and understands how to get the deal into the end zone. NO ROOKIES, please.
- The agent knows from experience what a Landlord might buy into in regards to new terms & conditions and how to present these “new” items in such a fashion that it makes sense for the Landlord to accept some new terms and conditions. I have seen this happen in just about every transaction including some of the larger shopping centers who are known to be inflexible.