EXPERTISE FINDS THE ANSWER.

At the Thomas Duke Company, we build our business on trusting relationships with our clients and exceeding their expectations.  

When one of our clients learned that St. John Providence Health Care System was searching for land for a new medical office complex in Livingston County, he strongly recommended they call us. He knew we had the expertise to not only meet, but exceed the health care giant’s expectations.  

Though St. John Providence typically works with its own broker, they did call us. The assignment: Find a highly visible property, large enough to support 100,000 square feet of medical offices. 

Drawing on our extensive knowledge of the Livingston and southwest Oakland County markets, we soon identified a property that met all the criteria. St. John Providence subsequently purchased a 14-acre parcel at the I-96/Latson Road interchange, site of a former elementary school. And the seller, the Howell School District, successfully disposed of vacant land to a leading healthcare provider that will bring jobs, and job training to the community.  

Our knowledge and experience turned this unexpected assignment into a win for everyone, including area residents who will soon have another health care option close to home.  

Whatever your real estate needs, the Thomas Duke Company can help you design the best strategy to meet them. We look forward to working with you as another of our trusted clients.

Please contact:  

Mark W. Szerlag, mszerlag@thomasduke.com, (248) 476-1277

John K. Porth, jkporth@thomasduke.com, (248) 476-8661.

NOW IS THE TIME TO SELL YOUR MULTI-FAMILY INVESTMENT.

This two-building, 19-unit, multi-family property on Kelly Road in Eastpointe sold for $2,000 more per unit than the appraisals of comparable properties in the area only a year ago. And we have a list of more than 100 other buyers who are still searching for a property just like this.

 It’s a seller’s market. Interest rates remain at an all-time low and banks are lending on multi-family properties. But most experts agree that these rates will not stay low much longer. As the economy continues to rebound and the housing market continues to flourish, the vacancy rates for multi-family properties are certain to rise. Increased interest rates and higher vacancy rates equal one thing – lower values.

If you’ve been on the fence about selling your multi-family property, now is the time to take advantage of the current market conditions. If you stay on the fence, you’re apt to miss the surge in activity—and profits—sellers are enjoying. Call Dave Tesch today to learn more about this deal or how he can help you cash in on the current market.

BRIGHT FUTURE AHEAD

The future is looking bright for retailers and visitors in downtown Plymouth. Last month, Steven Valli of the Thomas Duke Company assembled and closed a deal on a 3-lot parcel at the corner of Deer Street and Ann Arbor Trail, formerly known as Saxton’s Garden Center.

Steven presented the Saxton family a near-asking price offer from the City of Plymouth, which was very eager to acquire the underdeveloped corner across from Kellogg Park. The city purchased the assemblage as part of the Downtown Development Authority’s plans to energize the district.

It is a win for everyone. Except for the 60 buyers whose offers were not accepted — they’re still in pursuit of the right property to purchase.

Demand for downtown Plymouth property is at an all-time high. There may not be a better time to sell. Contact our team today!

Steven Valli (svalli@thomasduke.com)

LOCATION, AND……..

“Location, location, location.” It’s an old adage in real estate. And before 2007, it was a pretty good predictor of a property’s success.

Now we know the adage needs to be: “Location, and … Timing.”

The real estate market runs on a cycle, and the good news for real estate entrepreneurs is that the cycle has now turned up:

• Financing is readily available for user and investor properties
• Lenders are now competing for new loans
• Rents are increasing
• Sellers are receiving multiple offers, driving up prices
• Land for new development is selling well

Both buyers and sellers are jumping into these favorable conditions. The Thomas Duke Company has booked nearly $75 million in transactions in just the first three months of 2015. At the moment, buyers are outnumbering sellers, and we’re running out of properties to sell.

Timing the market cycle to meet your goals is never easy. That’s why we’re here. We can help you weigh all the variables and tap into the cycle’s timing to bring you to your real estate goals. Contact any member of our team today. We look forward to working with you.

Steven Valli (svalli@thomasduke.com) or Frank Rakipi (frakipi@thomasduke.com)

SURPASSING

For the Thomas Duke Company’s West Side Team, 2014 was a year of successful transactions surpassing expectation. And now, based on first-quarter sales, it looks as if 2015 may surpass last year’s mark. Already this year we’ve closed deals that posed considerable challenges. For example:

• In South Lyon we were asked to sell an industrial building on large acreage. Because the property is located along a commercial corridor, its uses are limited, to say the least. We found a John Deere dealership that will use both the land and the building.
• We were tasked with selling a former elementary school that had been vacant for two years and where environmental issues precluded any residential development. We found a charter school eager to make the building its new home.

We could go on—a multi-tenant retail building in Northville sold to a local investor, commercial land in Howell sold to a senior-housing developer—but you get the picture.

Our West Side Team has over 50 years of combined experience in real estate transactions along the I-96 corridor, from the communities of Novi to Northville and Brighton to Howell. Our local expertise, combined with our national reach, is the reason behind these successes and many more.

If you’d like your property to be the next on our list of 2015 surpassing successes, contact any member of the Thomas Duke Company’s West Side Team.

Mark Szerlag – mszerlag@thomasduke.com, John Porth – jkporth@thomasduke.com or Eric Szerlag – eszerlag@thomasduke.com.

Multi-Family Investments Selling Everywhere, and Fast

Mt. Clemens took it on the nose in the great recession. And the rebound has taken longer to reach it. But a recent sale signals that the area-wide surge of investment activity in multi-family properties has reached the Macomb County seat, too. 

When the owners of an eight-unit, apartment project at 125 Crocker Boulevard contacted the Thomas Duke Company for help selling their property, we immediately mobilized our tested marketing formula on their behalf. Using our extensive database and knowledge of this market, we identified and contacted all the owners of similar properties in the area. Our activity soon generated a competitive environment among them, which led to multiple offers. In the end we brokered a sale price of $275,000 for the building. At $34,375 per unit, that’s over $4,000 more per unit returned to the owner than any apartment-property sale in Mt. Clemens since the start of the great recession.

This sale is one more example of an investment trend sweeping southeast Michigan. As occupancy rates in apartment buildings have climbed, the demand for these properties has climbed too—and fast. In fact, in certain areas selling prices are approaching those of pre-recession days.

It’s a trend that’s creating quite a problem for us. We don’t have enough multi-family properties to show the ready buyers coming to us.

If you’ve been on the fence about selling your apartment property, now may be the time to jump. Let us show you the fresh list of 145 buyers we have who are still searching for the right rental property to add to their investment portfolios. Let us explain how we could market your property to complete their search. Contact Dave Tesch at 248-476-3700 or via email at dtesch@thomasduke.com.

The Story Behind the Story

There’s a story behind this success story—and for those in the real estate market, it’s the more interesting one.

Here’s the upfront success story: Eric Szerlag and Anthony Vitale of the Thomas A. Duke Company put a multi-family apartment building at 3314 Greenfield in Royal Oak under contract with an all-cash buyer just seven days after listing the property. Pushed by all the market activity that Eric and Anthony generated, the buyer closed this January, paying within 3% of the asking price.

Here’s the even more compelling back story: The final buyer was just one of more than 100 who expressed serious interest in the Royal Oak building. All of them were drawn to the property through a smart and attractive package of marketing materials, including a detailed investment analysis, that Eric and Anthony put together. They sent that package to the hundreds of potential purchasers they know are looking for just this kind of multi-family complex. Thanks to their marketing efforts, in a single week the property was searched on LoopNet, the most popular commercial real estate listing website, more often than any other property in Metro Detroit. In that one week, the listing page had more than 2,000 individual views. Yes, 2,000.

Thanks to this huge wave of activity, Eric and Anthony were able to hand select, from among several strong contenders, the buyer best able to meet the seller’s terms.

This isn’t a one-of-a-kind success for these two brokers. They’ve outperformed the market on every apartment building they sold this past year. They have collected information on the needs of every potential purchaser who inquired about this, or other multi-family opportunities the company has marketed. To learn more about their approach, or simply to explore with them what your building is worth, call the Thomas A. Duke Company’s Eric Szerlag or Anthony Vitale at 248-476-3700.

Looking for Four-Leaf Clovers

It seemed like a search for a four-leaf clover. 

A client came to us with cash she wanted to invest in a 4-6 unit apartment building. She’d had her eye on a property of that kind listed by the Duke Company, but lost it to another buyer. Duke associate Dave Tesch sensed her disappointment and offered to help find the apartment property that fit her investment need. 

That need was both specific and rare. The buyer not only wanted a building of 4-6 units; she also wanted it located in a precise area—an area, as it turns out, where there are very few small apartment buildings for sale. Complicating the search: the database available to Dave had no information on many of the smaller apartment properties in the buyer’s designated area. 

Quickly Dave discovered that the few apartment buildings on the market didn’t meet the buyer’s criteria. So he rolled up his sleeves and set out on an intensive search for the elusive match. He sent letters to owners of buildings similar to the one he was looking for, letting them know he represented a ready buyer. He drove the streets. He scanned aerial satellite maps. When he found a property that seemed suitable, he searched out the owner’s contact information and asked if they would like to sell. 

After almost seven months, one of his phone calls paid off. An owner of a four-unit building in Fraser was willing to sell. At closing the property sold for $198,500—just shy of $50,000 per unit, a very strong selling price for the area. The seller was happy. And the buyer knew she had a rare find. 

She’s not the only investor asking us to find apartment properties for them. At the moment, their demand outstrips the supply. If you own an apartment property, large or small, now may be the time to realize a very good sale.  

Contact Dave Tesch at the Thomas Duke Company to discuss how your property might be some buyer’s four-leaf clover. Phone 248.476.3700 or email dtesch@thomasduke.com.

The Wave is Rising – For Now

A rising wave: that was the shape of Michigan’s strong commercial real estate market in 2014. Capitalizing on that surge, Thomas Duke Company associates Steven Valli and Frank Rakipi logged a record 65 transactions.  

Will the wave continue to rise in 2015? Here are some of the market indicators:

• Interest rates (treasury rates) are still low for borrowers
• Investment lending is back
• Vacancy rates continue to decline in most markets.
• New housing starts and employment is on the rise.

Clearly the momentum of 2014 continues to build. Of course that’s not a certain guarantee of a strong market in 2015. Because we understand our market on a street-by-street basis, we can anticipate change and strategize to meet our clients’ short-term and long-term needs, whether the wave rises or falls.

Real estate can be cyclical and fickle. While devastating, the crash of 2007-2009 refined our skills; its challenges have made us highly attentive to our clients’ needs and intensely purposeful about meeting them. In a market where conditions vary by property, city, and street, our approach is simple: we listen carefully, act ethically and honestly, use every technical advancement available, and leverage our 35-plus years of commercial real estate experience to secure the best deal possible for every client.

Timing is everything, and for the moment, the wave is rising. We can help you make the most of the current momentum so that 2015 is your best year in commercial real estate. Call Steven Valli or Frank Rakipi at 248.476.3700, or email svalli@thomasduke.com or frakipi@thomasduke.com.

 

Better For It

Not every deal involves 35 different players, 3 government agencies, and stretches over 415 days. Thankfully. But in this case, the satisfaction at closing more than compensated for the labor and complexity.

The Duke Company’s Steven Valli and John Porth represented three local land owners working together to sell 67 acres in Canton, Michigan. Costco, who purchased the acreage on Belleville Road, south of Michigan Avenue, intends to build a 250,000 square-foot, high-traffic distribution center. Sale negotiations included the Wayne County Economic Development Authority, Van Buren Township building officials, and the Michigan Department of Transportation. In addition, there were farming leases, accommodations to surrounding property owners, and easements to work out. The number of stakeholders multiplied quickly! 

Closing the sale took thousands of hours of patient, persistent team effort. The whole area will reap the benefits. Construction will begin this spring on a facility that will have the highest tax base of any building in the county and bring with it 125 new jobs.

Not every deal is this complex, of course. But almost every transaction, no matter how small, encounters some sort of obstacle or challenge. You want assurance that the agents to whom you’ve entrusted your property have met those obstacles before and can calmly and expertly guide the sale to a successful close.

To learn more about this transaction, or to discuss how we can help you meet your real estate goals, call Steve Valli or John Porth at 248.476.3700, or email svalli@thomasduke.com or jkporth@thomasduke.com.