The following case study describes our process selling our recently closed property at 1837 Winona Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90027.

Deal Story

We first started speaking with the seller of 1837 Winona Boulevard in June 2021. At that time, the owner was looking for recommendations for seismic retrofit companies. After providing the list of companies to the owner, the seller reached back out to us in December 2021 to provide a Brokers Opinion of Value.

While the owner had not decided yet on which brokerage to sell the property, the owner reached out to us in January 2022 to provide the contact information for a handyman to service the repairs in the building. LA City Housing Department had recently completed their SCEP inspection and there were several items that needed to be repaired. After the repairs had been made and the inspector signed off on the work, the owner awarded us the opportunity to sell the building in February 2022.

1837 Winona Boulevard had been under the same family since 1985. The ownership group had kept the property in good condition over multiple decades but kept the rents low to keep turnover at a minimal rate. Even though most rents were well below market, the seller kept three units vacant over a span of several months. Due to the number of vacancies, we took the opportunity to conduct tours for all parties (investors, agents, brokers) and ended up touring fifteen (15) different buyers. While some buyers were disinterested in the deal after the tour, there were ten (10) buyers that submitted offers on the subject building.

We received a non-contingent offer from a buyer that was willing to open escrow completely non-contingent and release the earnest money deposit upon opening escrow. While the buyer had not toured the units, he was confident in his ability to perform. Keep in mind – this offer was approximately 10% higher than the next highest offer (blowing everyone else out of the water). We were a little apprehensive to go with this buyer since he did not tour the units (even though we encouraged him multiple times), but it was a non-contingent offer significantly higher than the rest, so we gave him a shot and opened escrow.

The buyer ended up taking a week to finally wire his earnest money deposit and when it came time to signing the escrow documents to release the earnest money deposit, the buyer started re-trading the seller – asking for a partial release of the deposit, termination of the resident manager’s agreement, reduction in price, so on and so forth. During this time frame, the Federal Reserve had just increased interest rates and indicated there would be multiple interest rates hikes soon. In the best interests of getting the property sold and not losing momentum with the other offers on the table, the seller decided not to agree to the buyer’s requests and cancelled escrow.

We went back to another buyer who was not the highest on price; nor the quickest to close escrow but would guarantee a surety to the close of escrow. The offer was still very competitive relative to other offers on the table and this buyer had toured the units prior to submitting an offer. This was a local buyer with a large portfolio near the subject property. In the end, the buyer performed per the contractual time frames which led to a successful close of escrow in forty-five (45) days.

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