Nick Keesee

Why do I invest in mom and pop retail buildings? Because I believe in the American dream of entrepreneurship and love playing a role via real estate to help incredible business owners be successful.

@EricSRichardson @sellercarry I'm much more in the camp of supporting my tenants. Even this case, the guy meant it in good fun. As long as you pay full price for your meal/service supporting your tenants is the way to go.

@sellercarry @Nick_Keesee Curious which is the better way, or is a case by case scenario?

My son's name is Grady. Shortly after he was born, I took him to one of my tenant's restaurants for lunch. He looks down at him in the carrier and asks what his name is. Me: Grady Him: Greedy!!?? That's a fitting name for your kid... then walks away. Welcome to the Real Estate business!

Most CA's are pretty boilerplate and fine to sign with a quick glance, but I was sent one recently that was absurd and if I had signed it, it would have put me in a terrible spot. Basically, it was a CA with no property identified. It was so broad that in essence, any property this broker brought me, he was owed a commission on whether I was already working on buying it with someone else or directly myself. There was no termination period identified either, so if I had signed it, in theory, this broker could have held me hostage on any deal I tried buying indefinitely to pay him a fee by saying he already knew the deal and was in contact with the owner. Unfortunately, there are some shady characters out there, even with a simple CA, trying to get something for nothing. Don't just willy nilly sign a CA from a broker you don't know and trust without first reading it.

@LiverpoolQI Tenant turned out to be way under capitalized, build out moved at a snail's pace, ran out of money, no payback on a loan given to fund construction shortage, building challenges, municipality challenges, I could go on

@Nick_Keesee Curious what made it difficult?

Reflecting more on this, this is a small deal that was supposed to be a layup. It turned out to be anything but and quite challenging. Fortunately, I wasn't starting my investment career with this deal. It emphasizes to me the importance of completing a successful deal as your first one to not only give you confidence, but to start building a platform at which to do future deals.

I sold this single tenant restaurant building last week. Bought it vacant, had a lease in hand with a tenant, rehabbed it, and it ended up being the most challenging deal of my career. On to the next deal!

$7 mill deal - "Here's the link with everything you could ever need." - No CA signed $450k deal - "I'm going to need wet signatures on the CA before I can tell you anything. Do that first then we can talk." Make it make sense.

For decades, credit retail traded at a significant premium compared to non-credit, for obvious reasons. Coming out of covid, non-credit, mom and pop tenants started to be viewed more positively after the shenanigans a lot of credit tenants tried pulling. Three factors have caused a surge in non-credit retail investing. 1. The resiliency of the asset class and how well it has performed. 2. The more positive outlook on mom and pop tenants vs pre covid sentiment. 3. A lot of capital floating around post covid looking for a home. I say all that to say this - the spreads I'm seeing between credit and non-credit deals right now are too skinny. As a diehard mom and pop guy whose entire portfolio is made up of it, it pains me to say (from a buy perspective), but I feel it's true. Here are two deals that hit my inbox, case in point. Deal A: STNL credit restaurant with decent term left in okay area - 6.25 cap Deal B: All mom and pop retail strip center, fully stabilized, okay area - 7.25 cap on a sales pro-forma, meaning a real cap in the 6's. Assuming both deals are completely stabilized which in this case they are, what's the better play? The STNL deal is not a premo brand like McD's or Canes of course, but it's still a legit credit deal. If you have patient capital, the play is to build a portfolio of quality STNL deals right now that can be bought at a <100 point spread compared to the mom and pop retail strip center next door. The key is the patient capital part - buying stabilized 6 caps, especially using debt isn't my idea of juicy returns but if you don't have LP's or you aren't playing a return game, I don't see the point in trying to scrape out a few extra bps to buy something with inherently more risk and more management involvement. The days of spreads being 250-300 pts different between credit and non have virtually disappeared. There are always going to be deals that break the mold but as a whole, spreads have to widen back to a point of the risk profile being worth the squeeze. One roof replacement, a few HVAC's that go down, new asphalt paving, etc on some of these strip center deals where the LL is responsible for all these costs could/would quickly drive the YOC down to the level of just buying a STNL deal and doing absolutely nothing.

If you have a 3rd party property management company managing and leasing your building, and it's an asset type where leasing commissions are common, be mindful of this conflict of interest. In a multi-tenant building, the value of a tenant remaining in place is marginal from a property management perspective, especially if it's not an anchor tenant. However, the value in re-tenanting that space can be significant. One unit might provide $3k/year in management fee revenue, whereas a leasing commission on the same unit could be $15k+. It creates an immediate conflict. How incentivized are you to do everything possible to retain tenants if retention is a low-margin activity compared to re-leasing the space?

Common to see in NNN retail deals for sale: Rent + CAM - CAM = NOI Then in those pesky lease details - LL is responsible for roof repairs/replacement, HVAC replacement, parking lot repairs, exterior facade, etc... The obvious question you should always ask is, how does one pay for such repairs if $0 are ever underwritten for capex/repair reserves?

In early 2015, I wrote my first ever offer on a commercial property. My offer was $1 million and it ended up selling to someone else for $1.45. The same property recently sold. The owner put almost nothing into it, deferred maintenance all over, higher than average vacancy. The only thing they did was lease it haphazardly, keep it status quo, and raise rents the best they could. Sold Price: $3.6 It can be easy to forget how market timing affects returns in RE. In 2015, you could have been blindfolded and bought anything in the country (maybe with the exception of some office and obsolete retail) and if you held it to today and kept it occupied, you made a killing. I think of this often when people claim they have a proprietary value-add strategy or they are leaders in the industry, and you look at their portfolio, and it's legacy assets that were acquired pre 2020. Sometimes, any dope can make money in RE if the timing is right.

Nice posts and I agree with you. ReTwit has been a big net positive in my life. However, what the platform has degraded into makes spending time here less and less valuable and demotivating for anyone wanting to post quality content. Unless you care to be a person the algo likes, it's challenging having any kind of audience. Never thought I would say this, but spending time on LinkedIn feels more valuable now than here.

Is REtwit dead? Idk Here’s what I can tell ya Every single day deals come my way because I’ve taken the time & effort to post hardly legible real estate posts every day for 5 years Is the algo sh*t? Yes Was sharing & reach better under Jack than Elon Absolutely I’m hopeful that it will get better under @nikitabier who seems to be fighting for positive changes Niche communities made this platform great & payments ruined it Here’s what I do know I’ve made more friends, learned more about real estate and business than I ever could’ve on my own Twitter/X has been a force multiplier for me If I need to talk to an expert about a strategy or an asset class that I don’t have much experience in 99% of the time that person takes my call As @BobKnakal says… It’s not what you know, it’s who knows you That’s a clever take on this little bubble of the Internet In the meantime I’m going to keep chatting in DMs, commenting on posts & taking calls from people who need my help Because life has a funny way of working out when you give better than you get Thanks for ridin’ along Lemme know if you need my help

@moseskagan @LAMultiBroker Ditto this sentiment.

@LAMultiBroker Yeah it's a better gig than being a principal these days!

I’ve spent the last 5 years grinding at becoming a successful CRE broker. My initial business plan was to get in and out of the game as quickly as possible. To use brokerage as a stepping stone to make some good money, learn the fundamentals and become a full time principal ASAP (because who would want to be a broker long term?). I’ve since built a 7-figure commission business, and my mindset has completely shifted. Once the brokerage flywheel starts spinning, I don’t believe there is a better career in the world. Brokerage can provide: - High value & niche skill that’s sellable to a mass market - Regular flow of 5 to 6 figure commission checks - Infinitely repeatable business model w/ simple personal branding strategy - Massive tax advantages w/ S-Corp structure, PETE, QBI, REPS, etc. - Opportunities to reinvest and roll fees into great deals - Complete & total freedom of time for family & personal obligations The realities are: - Brokerage is insanely competitive. - It can take years to make real money. - The majority of agents quit way too early. - Many of your clients will treat you like total crap. - You need to have a certain “it” factor to really hit it big. But I cannot name another career path for the highly motivated extrovert that provides so much upside & lifestyle optimization with so little capital or pedigree required. Long CRE brokerage!

@hxxntrr Now do it figuring operating expenses on the property. Also, the implosion of someone's DTI heading to the bank to get this loan you speak of. Advising a new RE investor to buy a mythical 36% coc property financed on a credit card is nothing but reckless.

Real estate bros won't tell you this but you can buy rental properties using 0% APR credit cards and owe nothing for 18 months… The "credit card down payment" method is how broke mfs are becoming landlords: Banks hand you $100k-$250k in 0% business credit. You use $50k as a down payment on a rental property. Cash advance or buy materials for "business purposes" Now you own a property that cash flows $1,500/mo The credit card payment? $0 in interest for 12 months. Just minimums In 18 months, that property has paid you $27k in rent. Your $50k "debt" now only cost you $23k in real money. And you own the fucking house The real psychos refinance the property before 0% expires, pull out equity, and pay off the cards completely Net cost: basically nothing Asset owned: a whole fucking house Banks funded your real estate empire and got $0 in interest This is why rich people stay rich. They use bank money to buy assets while poor people use their own savings

@walker_rouse More of the same, maybe more direct contact to owners. I track all sales in my markets and there were almost zero deals that traded where I would have paid what the buyer did so it's more a market function.

@Nick_Keesee What do you need to do in 2026 to increase deal flow if that is your goal?

A recap of my 2025 strip mall acquisition activities: - Looked at probably 300+ deals - Only about 25 were interesting enough to pursue - Offered on properties in 4 different states - Acquired one deal in Michigan The one deal I acquired was small, but arguably my best one so far. The market remains really tight. Plenty of aggressive buyers simply buying to place capital, or accepting suboptimal returns. I'd say my average strike price was around 80% of ask, or where deals ended up trading. My main takeaway was to stay patient and also keep working even when deals are hard to come by. The one deal I bought, for example, I was told by the broker it wasn't worth pursuing because there were "multiple" offers above mine. The proven ability to close, along with being easy to work with, allowed me to pick up a deal that I easily could have written off as another one that didn't work. I'm looking forward to '26 and to keep grinding it out, deal by deal, and see what happens!

@Dirtdog Looks like you found my side hustle

@Dirtdog You are actually out in the biz doing deals and making money. For this reason alone, paid training isn't a great fit because most RE trainers can't do, that's why they teach.

I get asked frequently if I do a trainings or can mentor. The problem is picking a good drive thru spot comes from 20+ years of experience of riding in the back seat of a van, fueled by stale coffee from a Home2Suites while eating Chomps for lunch. There is no replacement.

For people not in retail, it can be hard to visualize who tenants would be for a given space. I was the same way. Before I started investing in the strip mall world, I had no idea the type of users that are out there. Here are some examples of my tenants that many people wouldn't think of: - Japanese car dealership - Indian bridal boutique - Specialty medical testing - Commercial bakery suply - Mexican dance school - Children's play center - Boutique bodybuilding gym - Cat Cafe - Boutique wine tasting store These are the more unique ones beyond the standard strip mall tenants everybody knows. The cool thing with retail is it opens your eyes to local people in your community running all kinds of unique businesses you normally would never think of. Many niched down businesses operate in strip malls all across the country.

What's retail occupancy like in this market? How's the tenant doing? If occupancy is tight and the tenant is making money, especially if it's a mom and pop, very little reason for tenant to leave. Regarding small units - 300 ft is very small. These are best fit for pop up tenants or something like small salon suites. Presumably these don't have individual bathrooms so need people willing to share facilities. Nationwide, value-add retail is hard to find right now so you could be hooked on to something good.

In contract to purchase a property for 5m. 35% income from self storage 65% of income from (mostly) long term commercial and retail tenants. One tenant makes up 60% of commercial income. I have never owned a building with multiple retail tenants. My fear is that if the one primary tenant moves out that’s a big hole in the revenue. And I have no idea how difficult or costly it is to secure a new tenant. One of the many reasons I like storage - if a customer moves out it’s such small percentage of total revenue. Lease expires 2029 so we have 4 years left. There’s also quite a few vacant commercial/retail spots ranging from 300 sq ft to 900 sq ft that could be filled. What’s the play on leasing these out and limiting risk from the one large tenant?