As a commercial real estate broker who focuses on investment properties I have seen people earn millions in profits. Here are a few examples on how they did it:They bought a half vacant retail building filled with low paying month to month tenants. They evicted the tenants and improved the building cosmetically. The hired a professional retail leasing team and filled the property up with better paying market rent tenants and sold the building at a profit.They bought a self storage facility at 50% occupancy. They fired the manager and hired a new one. They rebranded the property. Added a new website. Fixed a bunch of broken units and raised rents on existing customers. They then sold the property at a huge profit.They bought an apartment complex with problem tenants. They evicted the drug dealers and trouble makers and invested a few thousand per unit in kitchen and bathroom upgrades. They then raised rents and lured better residents. They then refinanced when cashflow improved and pulled nearly all of their invested capital out of the property. Now they have none of their money left in the property but still own the asset. The best of both worlds - plus their equity proceeds are not taxable- bonus!They bought a mobile home park. They evicted problem tenants and brought in new homes to fill up vacant lots and lured new residents to buy these homes which increased the income on the property. They added fences and flowers and raised lot rents on existing residents.They bought a large vacant boarded up building downtown. They hired an architect and redesigned the property into a low income housing property and used state and federal tax credits to assist in funding the projectu2019s redevelopment. Upon stabilization they refinanced with non recourse debt and owned a u201cnewu201d multifamily property without having any of their own money into it.They bought a old industrial warehouse full of multilevel racking systems and other u201cjunku201d. They offered 20 cents on tha dollar for the property which was surprisingly accepted. They then dismantled the racking system and sold the scraps for significant money. They also found thousands of dollars in value in the parts of the u201cjunku201d sitting around the property. After tallying this up they received more money in selling the scraps than what they paid for the Building (I.e. free Building!!). Money was then invested back into the building and a tenant was secured. Significant value (equity) was created using nothing but creativity and effort.This is not complicated stuff. They just saw the opportunity and took advantage of it. Some used investors and some used their own money. All used lenders for the acquisition and/or disposition strategy.Finally I got paid a commission for selling them these Buildings or for selling the Building after they improved it. Sometimes I even got to do both!Commercial Real Estate is a great business. You get to meet a diverse mix of people and see them create wealth from taking risks and working hard.