5340 Ben Ave, Valley Village

the successful closing of 5340 Ben Ave, a 4-unit multifamily property in Valley Village, CA.

We were first connected with the seller of this property in March 2024 through our colleague and friend, Ryan Serling, who runs the Agnew|Serling Group, a team specializing in retail, industrial, and office sales throughout Los Angeles. Ryan refers us all of his multifamily leads, and we do the same for our retail, industrial, and office leads.

We were going to list this property in April for $1,200,000, however the seller ran into unexpected life issues so plans needed to be put on hold. Then, in August, the seller called us and said she was ready to sell.

She told us that one of the property's tenants expressed interest in buying the property. Over our 12+ year career, we've listed and sold over 300 apartment buildings in Los Angeles, and not once has a tenant actually purchased the property they were currently living in. We've had numerous tenants over the years claim they were interested in buying the property, but time after time that tenant would come to realize the value of the building was a lot higher than they expected, or we would come to realize that the tenant wasn't qualified to purchase the property. So when this seller told us her tenant was interested in buying the property, let's just say we had our doubts.

We told the seller, who's a realtor herself based in Las Vegas, that if she was going to sell the property to her tenant, she could explore that without us involved. However, the seller wanted an experienced multifamily team to guide this escrow along, especially with the tenant being a first-time buyer who would need a lot of handholding, so we moved forward as her representative.

After speaking with the buyer, we quickly learned that he was serious and qualified and maybe this deal had some legs after all. The tenant had zero real estate experience whatsoever, so we spent a lot of time with the buyer explaining everything that he needed or wanted to know. After getting the buyer comfortable with the contract and escrow process, we were able to open escrow in mid September at $1,200,000.

After the buyer's inspection, we learned of a multitude of deferred maintenance that needed to be addressed. Most importantly, the property had old Zinso electrical panels, which is largely uninsurable in today's difficult insurance market, so those needed to be replaced. We negotiated a reasonable credit for the buyer, and after that it was smooth...