All Forum Posts by: Gabriel Silverstein

...generally speaking, you can't do a deal. That said, with a rather minimal amount of equity, if it was a large enough deal (this is not what I think you're asking about, but just to give a full answer), something that requires $10 million or more in equity, you can "borrow" the equity from a private equity firm that makes you the sponsor of the deal, even with a very small equity percentage and then as leveraged equity returns go up (over 20%) you get more than your proportionate (pari-passu) share of the deal.

Most of these deals are done by developers and are availble on the secondary market as cap rate driven deals, individually or as portfolios. The investor criteria to get into such a deal then is just to have the money available to make a reasonable down payment on a deal that (at the interest rate spreads of the present money crunch) negatively cash flows if you put more than 60% debt on it. For one of those deals, the key is being a 1031 guy that doesn't care about making more than you already did (just a pure capital gains tax shelter) or being a guy that buys it for his grandkids because the deal will be worth a lot more when the lease finally ends or hits a renewal with a bump in the rent (most of these leases are structred as flat deals without bumps during the initial term).

I came to the site looking for some info on REO compilers, a seemingly interesting area that I somehow managed to avoid stumbling across in the last 15 years of corporate and commercial real estate. I don't do residential-related work per se, but occasionally we have worked with buyers looking for bulk purchasing.

As noted, my background is 15 years in corporate and commercial real estate. I have done both investment brokerage and tenant rep work. Investment brokerage is my real focus and preferred of the two areas, what I got my start in at LaSalle Partners (now Jones Lang LaSalle) but I nonetheless have just over $1 billion in tenant representation experience (mostly at Equis), so I've seen more than a few deals that way as well. As an offshoot of the investment brokerage work I do, I also do some equity investment placement/sourcing, primarily through larger private equity elic Real Estatefirms and occationally through hedge funds.

I deal with office, retail, hotel, multi-family and industrial properties. Almost everything I do is off market deals. Though occasionally that can involve a $5 million to $10 million deal size, most of what I do is $25 million and up. Most of my experience is US based, but I am active in several international markets, currently including China, Japan, the Dominican Republic and France. In total I have completed transactions in 18 countries including the US, and 45 states in the US (plus most Canadian provinces).

I am always looking to learn more and meet new people (buyers, sellers, brokers, others). I haven't gotten to tear through this entire site, but thus far it certainly seems to have a wealth of potentially interesting topics and participants (those that follow the rules and aren't banned, which seems to be a disturbingly high percentage of the posts I've seen thus far - is it that hard to not turn a post into an advertisement for oneself?!). Post away, all, I hope to make a contribution or two worthy of the time it took anyone to read this, and me to type it!

I don't do residential real estate, generally only large scale investment brokerage. However, I was brought the thought of working with a compiler through one of our junior guys (who didn't understand it) and as it happens that we have a friend who does a lot of foreclosure purchases, it seemed like a good fit for him, even if it's a bit out of my normal realm. The opportunity was brought to my guy by someone who says he works with another broker who is direct to the compiler (two of them actually) which means there is a daisy chain, but not a rediculous one. I'm very cautious before exposing anyone to a potential hazard (I'd rather not do a deal than do a bad one, and our reputation is for well-vetted deals). That raises the following questions:
1. How does one get to a compiler directly?
2. How does one go about qualifying another broker who may be direct to a compiler, to make sure they will be able to deliver?
3. Not irrelevant, how do we get paid (we are generally buyers' brokers for all our other deal anyway)?

Thanks, Gabriel :help: