I cannot be happier with the outcome of the sale of the building. The Pardee internal staff members, both on the Sellers and the Buyers side, are wonderful! Great professional approach and conduct throughout the process, always supportive and communicative, very accommodating for my specific needs pertaining to the sale, and in providing their many suggestions for third party support as was needed.
When I first seriously started thinking about selling my building after 40 year absentee ownership, I knew it was not going to be a short and sweet path for various complicated reasons. I also knew that I would need to find a firm that I could work with, without the high pressure approach of many "others" in the Venice Beach/Westside area. I was looking for both excellence and patience in the firm I would select.
In early Sept 2014, I spent a full day walking all the streets within about a half-mile of my apartment building to see what was going on in the neighborhoods, and to see what firms and agents had the listings, more importantly who had SOLD signs on their listings. Pardee Properties was the leader by miles for the comparable properties around the area.
This scouting around pretty much determined that I needed to talk directly with Tami soon to get things started, but I would still call a couple of others to just to see what they had to say. Being a planner type, and not too impressed with lots of flashy talk or embellishments, my first phone call to Tami was rewarding with the straight forward discussion and the very reasonableness of her logic, as well as a low-keyed invitation to meet in the office one day if I liked. All of the "others" were full of flash, dreams, and they were after so many immediate commitments from me which seemed they were almost in desperation. This was pretty funny and not worthy of any follow-up with the "others" for sure.
The first day I met with Tami and Kerry Ann the following week in their Venice office, it confirmed this was the right choice for me. Right out of the gate Tami focused in on the issues, the ultimate sale pricing ranges for the different building/tenant status and the possibilities for working on optimizing the outcome. She understood my desire to keep this within Pardee and off the MLS if possible, and certainly the pivotal thing was setting me up with legal counsel that same day for an initial discussion of legal paths to some of the outstanding issues that tied into Tami's overall assessment of the property.
Kerry Ann gave the assurances for any support or back-up that I would desire, with no pressure on timing or actions, a very positive feeling from her as my primary contact, with her only asking for periodic updates on the progress.
The plan took a few parallel paths after the discussions with legal counsel and Tami on timing considerations/etc. Interestingly, this deal ultimately concluded exactly to the month, and right on the top target sale price estimate, that Tami projected in our first meeting 18 months prior. They really know their business!
The noteworthy point of all this is that neither Tami or Kerry Ann ever put on any pressure to get the building listed prematurely or anything like that, just the handshake understanding between us to advance this until I was ready to list the building. Both of them were very interested and supportive through the whole 18 months it took to get this along the path to where we concluded a few weeks ago.
The last 4 or 5 weeks were unbelievable; I met with both Tami and Kerry at the building for a marketing/sales plan and I reviewed their refurbishment recommendations on the work to undertake in the vacant Units with the probable pricing range expectations, I started cleaning up the Units and planning for the painting/carpets/ hard surface/etc., Kerry Ann collected firm price contractor bids for the work for me, and then Kerry Ann made the Pardee internal presentation of the building offering to the Pardee agents.
A few days after the internal Pardee presentation, and all within a two week duration, came an initial offer, then the firm full price offer the next day, our mutual acceptance of terms, the Buyer completed inspections/reviews, escrow opened, escrow closed, cash in the bank, ...................WOW, .................. what happened,................... I LOVE IT!!!!!!
Tami and Kerry Ann are the best. This can certainly be seen from the sequence of events and their meeting all of my "special" desires regarding the sale as initially set out 18 months ago with Tami and Kerry Ann.
Again, I want to thank both Tami and Kerry Ann, and Rachael on the Buyers side (as well as the whole Pardee team) for this wonderful conclusion to a "retrospectively-fun" (or maybe just interesting) process.
I learned a lot from Tami and Kerry Ann which is always a plus for me, as well as having the pleasure of dealing with these two professionals. read more