Contact Us
Cart Icon 0
Tim Vi Tran, SIOR, CCIM, tells a personal story about Buying a Commercial Investment Property Using Other People’s Money (OPM) as a broker, investor, landlord.

How to Use OPM (Other People’s Money) to Invest in Commercial Real Estate – a Short Intro

By Tim Vi Tran, | Nov 5, 2025 | Representing Sellers, Representing Buyer, Representing Landlords

Buying a $1.22 million Silicon Valley commercial cash flow property using OPM – other people’s money: a real-world CRE case study by Tim Vi Tran, SIOR, CCIM. 👉 Access the FULL case study and the accompanying video (for a reasonable fee): https://theivygroup.com/courses/ (“Creative Financing”)

Here are the 2-min short video and the 2-min podcast versions of the written introductory summary below, distilled from the 15-minute full-length video of a case study: “Buying a Commercial Investment Property Using Other People’s Money (OPM)”.

 

What if you could buy a $1.22 million Silicon Valley commercial cash flow property… using other people’s money?

That’s exactly what happened here.

The seller was in a bind: recently divorced, recovering from surgery, relocating overseas, and needed to close in less than three weeks. Traditional bank financing? Too slow. Too costly.

Enter creative deal structuring.

  • The seller became the bank, financing $840,000 of the deal.
  • The buyer put down just 30%.
  • Title transferred immediately — escrow closed in under 3 weeks.

Six months later, when refinancing required more equity ($150,000), a new tenant provided two years of advanced rent up front. Structured as a security deposit, it met the bank’s additional equity requirements without draining the buyer’s cash reserves.

The tenant? Teledyne Technologies, a Fortune 500 giant with a market cap of $26 billion, signed a 5-year triple net lease with corporate guarantee.

That meant predictable and stable rental income, strong annual rent escalations, and all operating costs passed through to the tenant.

Add in cost segregation — a tax strategy that accelerated depreciation — and the first year’s tax savings alone offset massive obligations.

What began as a distressed sale became a trophy investment: strong cash flow, corporate-backed stability, and long-term growth.

All made possible by speed, trust, and one powerful tool: other people’s money.

To learn how, 

👉 Access the FULL case study and the accompanying video (for a reasonable fee): https://theivygroup.com/courses/ (“Creative Financing”)

The Ivy Group | Commercial Properties, Above & Beyond.

👉 Subscribe to The Ivy Group newsletter: https://theivygroup.substack.com/
👉 Contact us: www.TheIvyGroup.com

Copyright ©️ 2025 by Tim Vi Tran, SIOR, CCIM. All rights reserved.

Categories