244 W Walnut Ave, Monrovia

The LAAA Team of Marcus & Millichap is proud to announce the successful sale of 244 W Walnut Avenue located in Monrovia, California.

Property Description

This 2,799 sqft 4-unit multifamily property, built in 1953, sits on over 8,000 sqft of land, and it boasts an excellent unit mix of (3) 2 Bed / 1 Bath units and (1) 3 Bed / 2 Bath unit. The property also has alleyway access at the behind the buildings where there are 4 garage parking spots for the tenants.

Deal Story

We connected with the seller of this property through the seller’s brother, a past client of ours who we had completed two separate 1031 exchanges for already. The seller's brother told him how successful he was with hiring the LAAA Team for his exchanges and advised the seller to use us as well. The seller reached out to us in early September and told us about his wish to sell his Monrovia 4-plex and use the proceeds to buy an out of state apartment building. He wanted to get out of California due to the threat of continued rent controlled measures, especially because Monrovia used to be a non-rent controlled city which changed in 2020 when AB-1482 was passed. Ever since the seller bought the property in 2005, he always kept the rents low and his tenants happy because he knew he would be able to increase the rents to market rates if he ever needed to. However, once AB-1482 was passed he realized that strategy was no longer possible, leading to his desire to sell and exchange into a more landlord-friendly state.

We listed this property in early September and sent out our first "just listed" email announcement to nearly 20,000 principals and brokers on September 15th with a list price of $1,470,000. We immediately received a lot of interest due to the low inventory in Monrovia and received an above list price offer from an outside broker's buyer just days later. We advised the seller to give this buyer a counter offer adding in exchange-favorable terms, but we did not counter the price.

In the seller's counter offer we added that the buyer's deposit would be released out of escrow and sent to the Seller's 1031 exchange accommodator after the buyer removed all their contingencies. By adding in this term, the seller would be able to use the buyer's nonrefundable and released deposit for his own escrow deposit on an exchange property purchase. He would then have the ability to strategically open concurrent escrows on his exchange's sale and purchase properties, effectively...