Commercial Real Estate
Retail centers, gas stations, office, industrial, leasing, and business sales across Bellevue, Seattle, and King County.
The price is a conclusion, not a starting point
Commercial real estate rewards preparation and punishes assumption. The price comes out of the rent roll, the lease terms, the expense structure, the condition of the physical asset, and what a lender will actually finance.
How a commercial engagement runs here
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Define the objective
Yield, control, occupancy, exit timing, tax position, or operating need. Different objectives produce different “right” properties from the same list.
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Underwrite before touring
Rent roll, lease abstracts, trailing twelve months of operating statements, CAM reconciliations, tax and insurance history, and capital expenditure history. If the seller will not produce these, that is itself information.
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Physical and legal diligence
Title and exceptions, survey, zoning and use verification, building condition, roof and parking lot life, ADA accessibility, seismic considerations for older masonry, and environmental review scaled to the property's use history.
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Environmental review, taken seriously
A Phase I Environmental Site Assessment conducted to the current ASTM standard is the baseline for most commercial acquisitions and is generally what a lender requires. Properties with fuel, dry-cleaning, automotive, or industrial history warrant a Phase I early — before you have spent money on everything else. Phase II follows only if the Phase I identifies a recognized environmental condition.
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Tenant and income verification
Estoppel certificates from every tenant, subordination agreements where a lender requires them, and confirmation of options, exclusives, co-tenancy provisions, and percentage-rent terms. A rent roll is a summary. The leases are the asset.
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Structure and close
Financing, entity structure, allocation, escrow and title, and — where applicable — 1031 exchange timing.
Where the financial perspective helps
[TAX CREDENTIAL WORDING] The purpose is not to replace your CPA or your attorney. It is to make sure the right questions reach them at the right time — while terms can still be negotiated, rather than the week before closing.
A note on 1031 exchanges
If you intend a like-kind exchange under IRC §1031, the qualified intermediary must be engaged before the relinquished property closes, and the statutory clocks are unforgiving: 45 days to identify replacement property and 180 days to complete the exchange, running concurrently from the closing date. Missing either deadline generally ends the deferral.
Your CPA and qualified intermediary decide the structure. My job is to protect the timeline in the transaction.
Choose your path
- Buy Commercial PropertyIn preparationUnderwriting, diligence, and financing a purchase.
- Sell Commercial PropertyIn preparationPositioning, pricing, and getting to a clean close.
- Tenant RepresentationIn preparationFinding space and negotiating the lease behind it.
- Landlord RepresentationIn preparationLeasing strategy, tenant quality, and rent structure.
- Investment AnalysisIn preparationHold, sell, refinance, or exchange — run the numbers first.
- Business SalesIn preparationBuying or selling an operating business, handled confidentially.
Two assets, one transaction
A business sale usually involves an operating company and, separately, either owned real estate or a lease. They are valued differently, financed differently, taxed differently, and they fail for different reasons. Treating them as one thing is the most common and most expensive mistake in this category.
Confidentiality is the first requirement, not a feature. If employees, customers, suppliers, or the landlord learn that a business is for sale before the owner is ready, the value being sold begins to erode immediately.
Send me the rent roll and the leases. I'll tell you what I see.
Whether you are buying, selling, leasing, or deciding whether to hold, the first useful step is the same — look at the actual numbers before anyone talks about price.
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