- Before you Have a Deal
Many clients contact us before they find a deal. We have a Pre-Syndication Retainer for this that allows them to become clients of the firm for a nominal retainer. Under this agreement, we can help guide Syndicators from where they are now to where they want to be – and we can help them legally create a robust database of prospective investors so they don’t have trouble raising money for any of their deals. Our Pre-Syndication Retainer includes weekly Masterminds run by one of our securities attorneys, and up to two hours of one-on-one calls with a securities attorney where we can review your marketing materials, website, and branding, and help you strategize an investor marketing plan. And you get a couple of other perks (an Investor Marketing Plan Template and an Investor Relations BluePrint), plus a discount off a future syndication equal to or greater than the Pre-Syndication Retainer Fee.
- When You Have an Accepted Letter of Intent
The time to contact us for syndication legal dervices is when you have an accepted Letter of Intent (LOI) so we can determine what you need and send you a Fee Agreement. We recommend you sign and return the Fee Agreement with the requested fee only after you have completed the following three things:
- You have a signed purchase agreement with the seller. You should have a commercial real estate attorney licensed in the state where the property is located draft this — NOT the broker. Broker-drafted purchase agreements protect the broker and their commission; not you. This might cost you a few thousand dollars, but if you don’t do this, it could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in mistakes.
- You have reviewed the property financials for the past two to three years. Many times, you will need to incorporate “add-backs” omitted by the seller — which sometimes causes the deal to no longer work. Get the financials even before you do the purchase agreement, if possible. If not, get them before you spend any more money on anything (travel to the site, site inspectors, legal fees, etc.)
- Someone from your team has physically driven the neighborhood and visited the site. You could get there and decide the property is too rough or it’s in a Class D neighborhood that you can’t fix. Anything can look good in pictures, but once you drive the neighborhood and walk the property, you’ll have a much better feel as to whether this is a property you want to own and immerse yourself in for the next five to seven years.
Ideally, you should spend as little money as possible on a deal until the above three things are done, as they are your most likely deal-killers. Once you have completed those three things, and you still like the deal, our statistics show that you are 85 percent likely to close.
