MANSARD Helps You Sell Your Commercial Property With Confidence
Josh Bartell of MANSARD recently completed the sale of 154 Center Street, Groveland, MA 01834. MANSARD represented the seller in navigating the multiple offers the listing sourced.
Video Transcript
Jeremy:
All right. Josh, how are you doing?
Josh:
I’m doing great. How are you, Jeremy?
Jeremy:
Good, good. I’m well, I’m well. I wanted to catch up this morning and talk about Groveland. You just closed on a sale there, industrial property. It was a business owner who sold his company, and came to us because he had the industrial building where he was housing his company left over and wanted to get rid of it.
Josh:
Like you said, he owned this company and he owned the real estate together. He operated his company out of the building and then ended up selling the company, and so he was stuck with the real estate. The lease was ending for the company. That company was then purchased by another company and they were planning on moving out of the property, so he was going to be stuck with vacant property in about six months from the time we took it on.
Josh:
Basically he had attempted to market it himself, and was just getting bogged down with a lot of tire kickers and low offers, and was just unhappy with the market and how they were coming to him. He wanted to get some professional help, and so we took him on as a qualified seller. We met with him, we brought him through our process, and determined that he was a qualified seller.
Jeremy:
What you’re saying is this guy had sold his company, the company that bought his company signed a lease for say six months while they transitioned the operations out of the building, so he was facing a looming vacancy. He no longer needed the building, so he tried to market the building himself, find buyers, and ended up with a lot of tire kickers, people who were coming in, making lowball offers, really spinning his wheels and wasting his time. Would you say that the sale of this piece of real estate in Groveland was critical to his retirement plan?
Josh:
It was, it was. He was going to be stuck with an asset with negative cash flow, and he wanted to sell the property to be able to retire with his wife, actually.
Jeremy:
Interesting. He had successfully sold the company, which is not easy to do, then he had the building left over. Needed to dispose of that so he could transition the equity … this was a big deal for him … and get as much capital out of the property as possible, so he could retire with his wife?
Josh:
Exactly.
Jeremy:
After trying to do it himself, he hired our team, and you spearheaded the effort to take them through our sale process. Tell me what happened when you went to market.
Josh:
We went to market and we had a lot of good activity. There were a few lowball offers, but essentially we sourced four offers on the property. All of them were above what he was actually looking to get, and we ended up selling on a deal with a direct user. During that time there was some difficulties, and that deal ended up falling through. Through our continuous marketing period, we were able to set up a new deal within 30 minutes of the old one falling apart.
Jeremy:
Within 30 minutes of buyer number one backing out, we had the deal under contract with buyer number two?
Josh:
We did, we did. We marketed the property for a month before it was under agreement, fell through, put it back under offer in 30 minutes, and then we started proceeding towards PNS.
Jeremy:
Okay. Then from that point where you executed the PNS on the sale to when he closed, how long was that?
Josh:
It was … June, July, August … three months.
Jeremy:
Three months, okay. Within 90 days, he was paid out on his excess real estate?
Josh:
Exactly.
Jeremy:
In terms of the sale price, so the high to low, he had gotten offers on his own. What was a typical offer price he was seeing in the market for his building?
Josh:
When he was trying to market it himself, he was seeing offers from $700,000. Someone offered him $500,000 and they were all under a million, which he wasn’t too happy with.
Jeremy:
Okay. Then he ultimately closed at what number with us?
Josh:
He ultimately closed with us at 1.25.
Jeremy:
1.25, so he ended up selling about $500,000 to $750,000 over the lowball, time-wasting people that were coming to him. Maybe they sensed that he was motivated, not in the right way, to exit the building, because he had sold his company. Maybe he was showing some of that to the market, that he was nervous, and they were taking advantage of that. Having us run the process and be his intermediary and representing him, we were able to protect his interest from the market seeing those things and then negotiate the highest value. An extra half a million in his retirement with his wife, a big deal for this guy, right?
Josh:
Big deal. Big deal, yeah.
Jeremy:
Big deal.
Josh:
First-time seller, very nervous. I think some people sense that, try and take advantage of that. He was scared of making a mistake, because this was a significant transaction for him. This was his retirement, and he didn’t want to mess that up.
Jeremy:
Yeah. It’s not uncommon. We see one of the primary reasons why people end up selling a piece of commercial real estate is because they’ve sold, closed or relocated their company. This was exactly one of those reasons why. He’s not a professional commercial real estate investor. He doesn’t do this every year or three years or five years. This is the kind of thing where he has a facility that is now surplus and he needs to sell it, but it goes into the whole picture of maximizing his returns, getting as much money out as possible, because this is a direct investment for this gentleman, and making sure that he realized the full market value of the property was essential to him feeling confident about his sale.
Josh:
Absolutely.
Jeremy:
Okay, awesome. Well, thanks for tuning in and just giving me an update on Groveland. Happy to share it. If anybody has any questions about the deal, feel free to reach out to us here at the office. You can visit us at mansardcre.com, and subscribe to our YouTube channel and stay up to date. We’ll keep you up to date on what’s going on with the latest commercial real estate sales trends in the Boston area. Thanks.
154 Center Street, Groveland, MA
154 Center Street, Groveland, MA 01834 consists of 7,200 square feet on 1.43 acres. The building is divided into 6,000 square feet of clear span warehouse space and 1,200 square feet of office. The building was previously used for light assembly of plastic products and will be delivered vacant. The site comes with 0.25 acres of yard space and 1 loading dock and 1 drive-in door to service the building.
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Frequently Asked Questions about Top Commercial Real Estate Companies
I am a Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM). The certification is designated for those recognized as experts in the disciplines of commercial and investment real estate. With over 19 years of successful experience as a broker, I have brokered the sale of over 1,000 properties.
I utilize a variety of strategies to bring buyers to the deal. I have access to a strong and vast network of industry professionals. I have relationships with buyers and others who refer clients to me. Additionally, I use LoopNet, MLS and Costar and other online resources.
We are commercial property agents and do not provide legal advice. We do, however, work with skilled and experienced real estate attorneys and seek their counsel as necessary.
Commercial property brokers need information from their clients. For example, a commercial broker will ask their clients to provide important details about the history of the property and other facts crucial to its sale. Open and responsive communication makes selling a commercial property much easier.
The length of time it takes to sell a property is dependent upon many factors, like the amount of due diligence required to get the property ready to sell. A sale typically averages 6-12 months in the bidding process.
A 1031 exchange is a swap of one investment property for another that allows capital gains taxes to be deferred.
Your broker will consider many factors such as the location of your property, the year it was built, the type of property, and the size of the property. Your broker should be taking a market approach, which means they are looking at recent sales of other properties that match many of the characteristics of your commercial property to determine the sale price.
Properties are broken down into three classifications. Each property classification reflects a different risk and return because properties are graded according to a combination of geographical and physical characteristics. These letter grades are assigned to properties after considering factors such as age of the property, location of the property, tenant income levels, growth prospects, appreciation, amenities, and rental income. There is no precise formula that dictates which properties are placed into which class. Grade A space is the most expensive and presents the least amount of risk. Conversely, Grade C is the least expensive but has the most amount of risk. In most instances, it would be cost prohibitive to try and invest enough money into your property for the purpose of moving it up a grade.
There are important benefits to working with a commercial property broker. An experienced and astute broker will have strong relationships with other industry professionals to help locate buyers, will thoroughly understand market trends, and has tried and true marketing techniques and resources.
Agents get paid by the property owners via commission. An agent’s commission does not affect the purchase price.
Links to greater Boston real estate market trends:
- Schedule a consultation with a top commercial real estate broker
- Get an office market update for Greater Boston
- Find out the top 5 questions to ask your commercial real estate broker
- Sales trends to watch in the Boston commercial real estate market