Art of the deal mined with obstacles
What’s in a deal?
Ask any commercial broker in the Memphis area, and you might hear a story about legal snafus, lengthy negotiations or deals that simply went south.
We asked a few brokers to share some stories of complex deals, deals that were laced with dead ends and false turns, and stories that illustrate that inking a deal is more involved than assembling a sales contract.
SIXTH TIME’S A CHARM WITH LAND DEAL
When Tucker Beck, vice president with Crye-Leike Commercial, got a referral to sell some agricultural land in Cordova, it seemed like a pretty straightforward listing.
However, six contracts over seven years made it the deal that would not close.
Beck was trying to sell 8.77 acres at 9258 Walnut Grove Road for a family.
The property, a former rock quarry with 1,000 feet of Walnut Grove frontage, was left to various family members after its owner, Ester M. Redditt, died in the 1950s.
“There were three sisters and two brothers who inherited it, but it never went to probate, but that wasn’t revealed until much later,” Beck says.
The oldest brother, Richard, didn’t have any ownership because the family had given him a farm next door, leaving Mary Chester, Beverly Redditt, Ann Weinberg and Alan Redditt as the sellers.
Beck took a cue from Dan Whipple, who was then Crye-Leike Commercial’s president.
“He said, ‘When you’re listing some property, more than half the time your neighbor is your buyer,’ ” Beck says.
He was right. First Unity Church was next door at 9228 Walnut Grove and first had it under contract in 1999 for $258,000.
The first three contracts were owner-financed sales, but the deals fell through for various reasons.
“These contracts came through and then they backed out,” Beck says.
The fourth time was an all-cash transaction, but it too fell apart at the last minute.
The site’s environmental concerns also slowed one deal, since there were more than 40,000 pounds of tires alone on the property. Work crews had excavated sand and gravel from the site in the 1950s.