Planning to purchase or finance Commercial or Industrial Real Estate? Shopping Center? Office Building? Restaurant/Banquet property? Parking Lot? Storefront? Gas Station? Manufacturing facility? Warehouse? Logistics Terminal? Medical Building? Nursing Home? Hotel/Motel? Pharmacy? Bank facility? Sports and Entertainment Arena? Other?
A KEY to purchasing commercial real estate investment is performing a sufficient Due Diligence Investigation to guarantee you know all material facts to have a wise investment decision as well as calculate your expected investment yield.
The following checklists are built to help you conduct a focused and meaningful Due Diligence Investigation.
Basic Due Diligence Concepts:
Commercial Real Estate transactions are NOT comparable to large home purchases.
Caveat Emptor: Let the Buyer beware.
Consumer protection laws applicable to home purchases seldom pertain to commercial real-estate transactions. The rule a Buyer must examine, judge, and test for himself, is applicable to the purchase of economic real estate.
Due Diligence: “Such a stride of prudence, activity, or assiduity, as they are proper to get expected from, and ordinarily exercised by, a good and prudent [person] underneath the particular circumstances; not measured by any absolute standard, but depending on the relative facts with the special case.” Black’s Law Dictionary; West Publishing Company.
Contractual representations and warranties are NOT an alternative to Due Diligence.
Breach of representations and warranties = Litigation, time and cash.
WHAT DILIGENCE IS DUE?
The scope, intensity and concentrate of any required research investigation of business or industrial real estate property depends upon the objectives on the party for whom the investigation is finished. These objectives may vary dependant on whether the investigation is finished for the advantage of (i) a Strategic Buyer (or long-term lessee); (ii) a Financial Buyer; (iii) a Developer; or (iv) a Lender.
If you’re a Seller, recognize that to close the transaction your Buyer (and it is Lender) must address all issues material to its objective – many of which require information only you, as Owner, can adequately provide.