Real Estate Consulting
Wiss has provided commercial real estate consulting services and solutions to many prominent investment and commercial banks, governmental agencies, insurance companies, opportunity funds, institutional investors, and real estate developers and has evolved into a multi-dimensional service provider for the lending and real estate industry. As such, the Wiss team is experienced in underwriting and analyzing portfolio and one-off transactions of diverse property types—from shopping centers and regional malls to office and industrials buildings, multifamily housing, healthcare facilities and self storage assets.
The establishment of increased real estate consulting services expands Wiss beyond traditional offerings by creating a focused approach to real estate consulting; working alongside client CFOs, internal acquisition teams, property managers and leasing departments. Client support includes, but is not limited to:
- Financial services such as property level due diligence, agreed-upon procedures reports, CAM expense analysis and preparation, site inspections, Argus cash flow modeling and accounting system migration support
- Lease abstracting and administration
- Strategic advisory services including market research for leasing and sales data, evaluation of acquisition opportunities and the development of buy/sell recommendations
Case Study
In August 2011, Bon Aviv Investments of Englewood, NJ, a joint venture between publicly traded Aviv Arlon, one of Israel's largest developers, and privately held Bon Investments, closed on the purchase of a 218,205 square foot retail complex in Columbus, Ohio for approximately $13.3 million. Wiss assisted this client throughout the buying process, from initial development of procedures to inventorying required documents, preparation of lease abstracts, testing and trend analysis of financial information, updating of Argus cash flow models for current in-place tenant data as well as revisions to future market leasing assumptions, testing of tenant estoppels, review of third party reports (appraisals, property condition and property tax assessment) and concluding with analysis of closing statement proration s and apportionments. With a fund of this size, Wiss functioned as an integral part of the acquisition team, working closely with the fund's director of acquisitions and being another set of eyes on all aspects of the transaction, not just completing an established list of procedures and sharing our findings, but advising on current and future risks and potential upsides.
