As the Commercial Real Estate market is constantly changing and evolving, one thing has remained constant; the need to sell real estate. Whether to enrich their portfolios, increase production capabilities, or simply for tax reasons, commercial real estate owners look to dispose of their assets with the highest possible gain.

When looking to sell, there are several different strategies for doing so. Some owners put a sign in the yard or the corner of the building, others look to tell as many brokers and friends in the area as possible hoping to facilitate a transaction, still others list with a family friend or a residential broker, and finally others give the assignment to a Commercial Brokerage.

Each of these are effective in different ways. There’s not a wrong way to sell Commercial property. However some ways will get the transaction accomplished sooner than others. Read below to see some practices and procedures that go into selling a commercial property.

• Before putting a property on the market there should be one or two people that know everything there is to know about that property. One should be you, the property owner, and the second is your broker. Deals get lost everyday when some piece of wrong information is provided to a potential buyer. Everything from the zoning, parking capacity, roof age, etc… to the number of AC units in the office area.
• Meeting with the banks and other financial institutions is always a good idea, as a property for sale with no way to finance it does not help the seller. Finding out which various community banks are lending, can be an integral part to sculpting a transaction when a ready, willing and able buyer is found.
• Marketing is the hardest part of selling a property. Just a few short years ago we all remember that the buyers were easy to find and available properties just flew off the shelves. With the current supply and the lower demand, all this has changed and the order takers are no longer able to continue in the business. We explain how Prudential takes the marketing of a property to the next level in our marketing plan, but there is an important lesson here. Without a consistent, all encompassing marketing strategy, the best broker in the world can’t negotiate a sale without a buyer.
• Once a buyer is found the deal is born, under the steady leadership of a commercial real estate broker, offers are written, terms are laid out and if all goes well during negotiations, a contract to purchase is executed. During this process it is always recommended an attorney is consulted and retained to ensure you are adequately protected.
• Once under contract there are a myriad of concerns to be addressed: due diligence time frames, financing periods and constraints, title work, contract time restraints, etc…
• During contract period a commercial broker will work closely with the buyers agent, attorney’s, appraiser, bank, environmental engineers, contractors, inspectors and closing agent to ensure his client is protected and all happen in a timely fashion.