In the fall of 2019, a client reached out to our Mid-Cities Multifamily Specialist Stelios Zoumberakis.
He was weeks from selling a retail/multifamily mixed-use building in rent controlled Los Angeles, off-market, and was shopping for uplegs. It was a problem for him because he had no representation, and found himself in the unfamiliar world of the free market.
Ordinarily, when you list a property with Centennial Advisers, we would start looking at properties to buy right after the initial listing, so by the time we close on your old property, we’re already close to closing your new one. We call it a simultaneous exchange, and our record is one weekend.
Regardless of the aforementioned tangent, he needed to buy something and fast.
He had looked at several multifamily properties online, but couldn’t quite find anything he liked. Stelios asked him if he had ever considered self-storage as it was similar to apartments but without the ‘tenants or toilets.’ We happened to have a self-storage deal listed close to his home and he elatedly went to check it out.
After some back and forth haggling with the seller, we found ourselves in escrow on his first deal. Yes, his first deal because Stelios was able to connect him to financing that would allow him enough leverage to use the remainder of his proceeds to purchase another deal!
The hunt was back on! After underwriting nearly 30 deals, we found a great opportunity in Compton. 10 units, all 2-bedroom at a great price. The units felt like you walked in from Cape Cod – immaculately maintained with wood-lined vaulted ceilings in the bedrooms and common areas. We had found his second property.
Closing 2 properties with different lenders can be a challenge for most brokers in the best of times. The closing timelines of both deals just happened to put them in a direct path with the first COVID-19 closure. We quickly pivoted from agent to courier as we shuttled documents from escrow to buyers to lenders to escrow.