Haven't Posted in Quite a While, So Why Now? He's Trying to Find a Buyer for Shaker Hall!

I turned on my computer earlier this morning to check e-mail and as usual, a number of Loopnet listings appeared along with my other morning mail. One e-mail stood out - Shaker Hall of Cleveland is for sale and you can only guess who the owner / poster to Loopnet might be.

After clearing some of the messages that need immediate attention, I got a strong cup of coffee and delved into the Shaker Hall post. It has a well stated opening statement, nice photo, well respected location, yet I know it is not a property that we could ever be interested in. There is understandably too much 'history' and clearly too much knowledge of the Property, the Seller & financial presentations.

I took some time to read through the rent roll, historic operating numbers and 2008 operating budgets. To say the very least, it is nice to know that some in today's multifamily business are very optimistic. I'm trying to recall the last QUALITY management team that tried to raise projected rents [with paid occupancy, of course] while coming off of a 15% vacancy for the prior year or reducing payroll on site for a 104 unit property when the total payroll is slotted for 2 people or ...

According to the Office of the Auditor for Cuyahoga County, the Property currently has an assessed value of $742,000 and a market value $2,120,000. With an offering price for the Property at $3,650,000, I do wonder when the Buyer of this asset will find an increased tax bill in his mailbox? I wonder if the Seller has some magic way of keeping the taxes in check without full & fair disclosure to the County Auditor? I guess you could attempt to take over control of the existing ownership entity itself, but I am not one who would want to step into the potential for contingent liabilities, even with some form of 'hold harmless' from this Seller. Maybe one of you is more daring!

In any event, if you would like to talk about this property, if you have done business with this Seller before & have advise to those looking at Shaker Hall or if you are just curious about the way some do business in this world, I do look forward to hearing from you. You can contact me here or via e-mail @ Mitch_Greenstein@Yahoo.com