Ideas in the Wild: How Mike Sowers Aims To Open New Doors for Real Estate Investors Looking for a Fresh Start

For those bored with residential real estate, what if there was a way to do the exact same thing for ten times the profit — with no extra time, money, risk, or corporate red tape?

Commercial real estate is the key, but most books on the subject leave readers with plenty of information but no idea where to start. That’s why Mike Sowers wrote Commercial Real Estate Investing — to provide a simple, proven, step-by-step roadmap for doing commercial deals.

I recently caught up with Mike to learn what inspired him to write the book, his favorite idea he shares with readers, and how he’s applied that idea to his life and his business.

What happened that made you decide to write the book? What was the exact moment when you realized these ideas needed to get out there?

I have been thinking about this book for my entire investing career which is over 15 years. I just finally decided to commit to writing it because I knew the process would force me to laser focus my system so I could understand how I was actually doing what I was doing so I could duplicate that success in other markets. With COVID last year and me hearing nothing but negative news every single day about how bad the commercial markets were — when my experience was that I was finding the best deals I’ve ever found — I knew it was the perfect time to take a step back and write this book to show people that you can make money investing in any market cycle.

When the market is good it’s easy to sell properties and you make great deals. When the market is bad, you can buy deals at deep discounts and create equity long-term. When the market has completely tanked, you can find the very best deals possible, as long as you can unlock the secret to funding larger deals by using money partners to help with the down payment. This is the biggest secret I uncover in the book is how to fund a larger deal using other people, even if you don’t have an established network of friends with deep pockets.

What’s your favorite specific, actionable idea in the book?

How to fund a real estate acquisition using a partnership so you can do unlimited deals. I grew up on assisted lunches so I didn’t have a deep network of “good-old-boys” and people with deep pockets I could tap into. I found a secret method for finding these people with a very actionable approach and learned how to package my deals up, pitch the deals, and structure win-win partnerships that allow us to do all of the work, and them to put up all of the cash, and we split the profits in a way that is equitable. We get access to do deals we couldn’t do without their capital, and they get passive, above-market-rate returns secured by a real asset that grows in value and has better tax advantages than any other investment vehicle available on the market.

What’s a story of how you’ve applied this idea in your own life? What has this idea done for you?

I have remodeled and rehabbed over a thousand properties, and it’s a grind every day. When I figured out that I could go after larger assets and structure these partnerships, I was able to go from doing 50–100 deals per year to doing just 3–5 deals per year and making 2–3 times the money. And the best part: it took significantly less time and also allowed me to interact with business owners as tenants rather than homeowners and first-time homebuyers.

Most people investing in residential think commercial is too risky and out of their reach. I did for over a decade. But once I unlocked the secrets I give away in my book, it changed my investing strategy for good. I sold all of my residential properties and went full-time into commercial. As a result, my life is more fulfilling, and I’m excited to get out of bed again.