Half Price Conversion Opportunities

I think we have heard far too much about how bad things are; the constant drone in the media about the banking crisis, the car manufacturing crisis, the home foreclosure crisis. If I hear one more crisis I just might go around the bend.

In March, Service Realty, Inc., held its annual sales meeting and as a part of that meeting we had a panel of bankers talk to us about their outlook on the economy. The bottom line was this; there is a commercial foreclosure crisis on the horizon that will make the recent residential foreclosure crisis look like a Sunday afternoon picnic; estimated time of arrival late summer or fall.

There are two characters in Chinese that make the word CRISIS, those characters taken separately translate DANGER and OPPORTUNITY. There are plenty of people that will talk to us about the dangers of our times. I prefer to direct our attention to the opportunities that are already starting to manifest them selves.

Based on what the bankers had to say we began a search for buildings that would fit the opportunity side of the equation and we have already identified a few of them and expect many more as time goes by.

Some of these buildings have been foreclosed, some are owned by businesses that no longer need the space they once required, investors that can no longer hold the property, there are a myriad of reasons why these owners want to sell.

Any of you that have worked with us know that one of the things we always do is ask you to get prepared financially and that is more important than ever when you are looking at acquiring one of these bargain buildings to convert to church. The buyer that has their money in their pocket (or their banker in their pocket) are the ones that will be successful because usually the sellers will only deal with those they are sure can close the transaction.

Another of our key steps is to get the proper professionals to assist. In the case of a building conversion you will need a team that knows construction from A to Z. When we set out to evaluate the first of the buildings we found we partnered with a Construction Management group that is comprised of the project manager, an architect, interior designer all with experience in retrofitting buildings.

Join us this coming Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. Central at www.ThePastorCast.com and hear our Construction Management team discuss this timely topic Converting Commercial Buildings to Church or School and browse our recordings of previous PastorCasts on various topics.

www.ThePastorCast.com is sponsored by Service Realty, Inc.,
Home of The Church Real Estate Professionals®

About the author
Bill Travis, a native of Dallas, is a Senior Director of Service Realty, Inc, and has worked with churches in this area for almost ten years.

Based in Plano, Texas, Service Realty’s mission is to exclusively serve churches, schools and religious organizations in the planning, marketing, acquisition and development of real estate. Now serving Dallas, Ft. Worth, Houston, Austin/San Antonio, Denver and Seattle/Tacoma the SRI team has done this work for over 20 years and that is why they are known as

The Church Real Estate Professionals®

BillT@ServiceRealty.com     www.ChurchRealty.com
Toll Free: 866-424-2001