033. Adaptive Reuse and Renovations with Mike Sowers

Adaptive Reuse and Renovations with Mike Sowers

Mikes mission is to humbly and gratefully find pathways to creatively unlock potential in people, places, and ideas. He is the Founder and CEO of Commercial Investors Group whose core business is repositioning commercial real estate assets in the Midwest. Mike is the author of the book "Commercial Real Estate Investing: A Step-By-Step Guide To Finding & Funding Your First Deal" being released Q2 2021. Mike heads the commercial investing mastery program where he coaches implementers of his 7 step system across the country. This proven system helps investors transition from residential investing to commercial and structure real estate partnerships using equity partners. Mike hosts the "CREative Commercial Real Estate" Podcast and the "This Old Building" TV Show. He is also an acclaimed keynote speaker. His passions outside of work are traveling the world with his wife Lisa and children Andi and Brody, playing guitar at Creative Church, volleyball, kiteboarding, snowmobiling, boating, and writing.

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371. Underwriting an Auto Garage Conversion | Office Hours
371. Underwriting an Auto Garage Conversion | Office Hours

Everyone thought this deal had potential.

An auto garage in a high-traffic corridor, multiple bays, value-add upside—it checks all the boxes on paper. But when you actually sit down and underwrite it, the numbers tell a completely different story.

370. Nobody Wanted This Vacant Warehouse. He Bought It With $0 Down in 45 Days
370. Nobody Wanted This Vacant Warehouse. He Bought It With $0 Down in 45 Days

Nobody wanted this 70% vacant warehouse. Matt Barbaccia did and he closed it in 45 days with $0 out of pocket. When Matt joined the CRE Accelerator, he told me he felt underqualified for bigger deals. 45 days later, he set the record for the fastest commercial deal ever closed by a member using 100% seller financing on a flex warehouse most investors scrolled right past on Crexi.

369. Stop Buying Rental Houses. Start Buying Commercial
369. Stop Buying Rental Houses. Start Buying Commercial

Most rental properties don’t fail because they’re bad deals. They fail because the margins are too thin to matter.

The average landlord is making around $700 a month in profit.

That might sound fine until one repair wipes out the entire year.

That is where most investors get stuck.

Residential real estate can work, but it is getting harder to scale, harder to grow, and harder to rely on as a real income stream.

368. How Elite CRE Brokers Stop Hunting and Start Capturing Demand
368. How Elite CRE Brokers Stop Hunting and Start Capturing Demand

Can data, media, and AI actually replace endless cold calls for commercial real estate brokers? Logan Freeman, co-founder of CRE Central in Kansas City, and Tyler Cauble, Nashville-based broker and developer, have built a brokerage model where they stop hunting and start capturing demand by following where capital is already moving — stacking $92M under contract/LOI and a $265M pipeline in one of the most volatile CRE cycles in modern history. Their Brokers Mastermind members are doing the same, from Jake Clark’s $8M Nashville deal with a six-figure commission, to multi‑million‑dollar land, industrial, and IOS transactions driven by niche authority instead of spray-and-pray prospecting.

367. 90% of Her Warehouse Deals Come from Social Media (Not Cold Calling)
367. 90% of Her Warehouse Deals Come from Social Media (Not Cold Calling)

Can social media actually close commercial real estate deals? Aviva Sonenreich, managing broker at Warehouse Hotline in Denver and host of the Commercial Real Estate Secrets podcast, built an audience of over 1 million followers talking about CRE on social media — and 90-95% of her deal flow now comes directly from her online presence, including a $9.5 million industrial sale that started from TikTok.

366. Will Retail Outperform Flex in 2026? | Office Hours
366. Will Retail Outperform Flex in 2026? | Office Hours

The asset class you’re probably driving past every single day might just be one of the best opportunities heading into 2026. It’s not what most people expect.

For years, flex and industrial have dominated the conversation. But right now, retail is quietly setting up for a strong run, backed by low new supply, stable vacancy, and renewed investor interest.

365. You're Broke Because You Chase Cashflow
365. You're Broke Because You Chase Cashflow

Most real estate investors chase cash flow. Here's why that's keeping you broke. In this video, I'm breaking down the strategy that's helped me build wealth way faster than the traditional buy-and-hold approach — and why almost nobody in the residential world talks about it. I'll walk you through real deals I've done, including:

  • A 9-story building in Chattanooga we turned into a $2.2M profit (equal to 7 years of cash flow — in one deal)

  • A $435K retail building I flipped for nearly $200K in profit by doing one thing: signing a lease

  • A dirt lot we rezoned and flipped for a $1M gain, then 1031 exchanged into passive income

The truth is, you're not choosing between cash flow OR appreciation forever. You do value-add first to build your capital base — then you can afford to invest for cash flow later. If you're starting with little to nothing, this is the strategy that changes everything.

364. Why Underwriting is SO Important | Office Hours
364. Why Underwriting is SO Important | Office Hours

Underwriting is one of the most important skills a commercial real estate investor can develop.

It is what separates investors who guess from investors who understand exactly how a deal will perform before they buy it. A property may look great on the surface, but until you run the numbers and test your assumptions, you do not actually know if the deal works.

363. Stop Writing Offers Like a Residential Investor - Do This Instead | Office Hours
363. Stop Writing Offers Like a Residential Investor - Do This Instead | Office Hours

Most investors coming from the residential world make the same mistake when they start pursuing commercial deals: they try to write offers the same way they would on a house.

In residential real estate, the contract is the offer. You submit it, tie the property up, and start negotiating from there.

Commercial real estate doesn’t work like that.

Before attorneys ever touch the deal… before a purchase and sale agreement is drafted… and before anyone spends thousands of dollars on legal work, sophisticated buyers and sellers start with something much simpler: the Letter of Intent (LOI).

362. Most developers go broke before they ever break ground with Meg Epstein
362. Most developers go broke before they ever break ground with Meg Epstein

In this episode of Lessons Learned, Meg Epstein pulls back the curtain on what ground-up development really looks like when the wheels come off. A developer she invested with burned $1,000,000 on plans that didn’t pencil… and when the deal started falling apart, it escalated fast: subpoenas, legal threats, and a moment where it felt like everything she’d built could get wiped out overnight. Meg shares how she survived it, what she changed, and the business model she rebuilt afterward, including why chasing the “institutional” path can be a trap, why niche strategies win, and what it takes to keep your real estate business alive through a down cycle.