commercial real estate

NAI KLNB, in its capacity as exclusive agent, is pleased to offer for sale the fee simple interest in an exceptional retail building in Laurel, Maryland. Pheasant Run Shopping Center (the “Project”), fronts Route 197 just east of the Baltimore Washington Parkway and is ideally suited for an investor looking to create value or an owner interested in occupying a portion of the building.This strip center, built in 1988, contains approximately 19,504 rentable square feet including the main building (which totals 16,901 rentable square feet) plus a freestanding 2,603 rentable square foot laundromat.

The offering also includes 2.8 acres of excess land that is zoned C-S-C and could potentially support a variety of uses including retail, office, or hotel.

For a complete offering memorandum please email Chris Kubler or call 301-455-8840.

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1. Don’t return calls within 24 hours. People love knowing you’re a low priority.

2. Don’t ask for business. People are going to go out of their way and offer it to you, aren’t they? You’re nice!

3. Golf a lot. Rationalize it by convincing yourself you’re cementing a client relationship.

4. Check your email and blackberry constantly and reply to emails at all hours. It’s a great way to lose focus…it’s amazing how the days slide away and you realize you haven’t actually done any selling!

5. Convince yourself that you’re not a salesperson but a some sort of glorified consultant. Inflate your ego accordingly.

6. Take your clients for granted and don’t thank them for the business.

7. Don’t service listings. Put up a sign, put the building on the internet services like costar and loopnet, and forget about it. Hope the phone will ring. Don’t be proactive about marketing.

8. List everything in sight at whatever crazy sale price or asking rental rate your client wants. Running on the hampster wheel is fun!

9. Try to do residential and commercial real estate at the same time. Hanging onto that residential security blanket sure feels good.

10. Spend most of your time working with investor-buyers. Generate lots and lots of offers without any control over product.

As a result of extensively marketing a car wash in Maryland, two other car wash owners have tracked me down and asked me to market their own car wash…leaving me the possibility of handling six car washes for three different owners…an unusual prospect for me, primarily a warehouse broker. Running these takes some effort, so it is often a change in life circumstances, eg a move, health issues, etc that leads to a sale.

I know, a dry topic, but if you don’t work for an institutional owner or a national brokerage firm, you may be lacking in access to good analysts for Argus modeling and other financial analysis.

Here are some folks who have expressed interest in doing this kind of work, or do it for a living:

rebackoffice. http://www.rebackoffice.com/analyticsResearch/investmentAnalysis.html. $250 plus $10/tenant and $25/assumption. rebackoffice has a wide range of real estate outsourcing solutions. Overseas solution.

Cherie M. Hardgrove, MAI, CCIM. chgrove@columbus.rr.com. $90/hour.

Global Realty Outsourcing, Inc. T: (212) 209-0772. Wide range of pricing depending on format of data provided. Can do lease abstracting and other due diligence projects. Overseas solution.

Carey Guiberson. Carey [carey@ont.com]. Will refer assignments to his graduate students. $50/hour.

I spoke with a REIT executive who confirmed my impression that the days of bidding wars for commercial real estate, even in the hot Washington DC market, are over for now. Where once brokers set bid deadlines and were assured of a dozen offers, brokers are now “quietly marketing” properties to a handful of buyers. The fear? No one wants to strike out, end up with no offers for their building, and be embarrassed.

The parallel is the residential side where once brokers could have an open house on Sunday, set a bid deadline of 7 pm on Monday, and count on a bidding war.

If you’re a commercial real estate professional, try this commercial real estate custom search from google. searches 9 sites, including: businessweek.com, forbes.com, wsj.com, realestatejournal.com, propertyline.com

I have every exclusive listing professional photographed.

Jim Oesch, one of the best commercial real estate photographers in the country, charges me well less than $1000 to shoot a building. Jim is flown all over the country to shoot buildings.

He makes buildings look so good, I’ve actually got complaints from prospective buyers: “the building doesn’t look nearly as good in person!”

I argue your marketing materials not only sell your listing, but win you your next one. Whether we’re talking about a residential commission (in the five figure range) or a larger commercial sale, it’s money well spent.

If your mortgage broker extols the virtues of a “conduit loan,” i.e., lower rates, longer amortization, and so forth, be wary. I’m not telling you to avoid conduit loans, but if you’re accustomed to dealing with banks, say farewell to a customer service-oriented experience. Also beware of

-Lengthy prepayment lockouts

-Arduous reporting requirements

-Prepayment penalties (called defeasance) that make prepayment unfeasible

If you want to sell your building in the next year or two, I would discourage you from using this sort of debt.

Despite talk of a market slowdown, there’s clearly still many more buyers of investment property than sellers out there — at least for commercial property.

I get at 5 to 10 calls a week from investors looking to buy.

When I find the “deal of the lifetime,” who do I call?

Obviously someone who has cultivated a relationship with me.

Also, someone who has clearly stated their investment criteria to me.

Investor who call and say, “I’ll look at anything that makes sense” or “show me everything you’ve got” don’t rise to the forefront of my mind when I’m quietly marketing an exciting investment opportunity.

The investor who spells out this criteria garners instant credibility and more attention for me. What do I mean? Tell me :

-the product type/s that interest you (e.g. office, industrial, retail, multifamily, flex, self storage, residential land)

-tolerance for risk and vacancy

-yield expectations

-minimum and maximum deal size

-what you own or have owned

Do your self a favor and think this through. You’ll see more deals from brokers and buy more buildings.

REIT stocks have been hammered of late, some deservedly so. One worth a look is First Potomac Realty Trust (NYSE:FPO). It’s a nice play on one of the strongest commercial real estate markets in the country, ie Washington DC. I’ve sold buildings to them and I am impressed with the principals. The commercial real estate market as a whole is WAY oversold. Things may have slowed down but around here at least market fundamentals are sound. FPO’s dividend has grown nicely and the yield is through the roof right now thanks to the punishment the market has given the stock.