These are taken from more than 30 years of experience in commercial real estate transactions and show how various situations have been handled creatively.
A. Making Lemonade Out of Lemons
Joe Dunn was the listing agent on a 20 acre parcel which was designated a Superfund Site. With this designation it had a negative net worth--the owner had substantial clean-up responsibilities and no possibility of selling it. Through work with the EPA case manager and the Seller's attorney, the owner was able to exchange EPA sponsored clean-up as a demonstration project for a hold harmless agreement benefiting the owner and the owner's agreement to provide a small portion of the site on a short term lease basis for the EPA's use for materials storage. Various subsequent sales produced more than $1,500,000 to the owner. B. Fast close
A purchaser had 1031 money and was interested in a building near Stapleton Airport. The purchaser could not get an agreement with the Seller's attorney on contract details and an agreement appeared impossible. With the assistance of the Buyer's attorney (a real estate attorney) arranged to close in 11 days without a contract--just a title commitment, survey, and appropriate inspections. The Seller (a trust) is still scratching their head.
C. Nobody buys land--They buy results
We have repeatedly created a story for different parcels of land to identify what can work on the site, involving developers or architects in site design and thus interesting potential buyers for each specific parcel.