When the buyer's lender asks for the wholesaler's contract on a single tenant retail box
A scenario worth working through because it comes up more in commercial wholesaling than people expect. Say a wholesaler is under contract on a 9,200 square foot single tenant retail box in a small town, national drug chain style tenant, 6 years left on a flat lease at 118k a year absolute net. The contract is 1.19m. There is an all cash buyer at 1.33m, so the assignment is 140k after a small credit given on the survey. Halfway through, the buyer decides to use a lender after all, and the lender's file request includes the original purchase and sale agreement and the assignment. Which means the seller's price is going in a loan file and the fee is visible to everyone. Say the seller is a retired owner who has been polite and slow. He probably would not blow it up, though nobody knows that for certain. Two options present themselves. Let it go through as an assignment and disclose the fee to everyone including the seller, or do a double close funded by a transactional lender for the day, which on this size costs somewhere around 9 to 12k all in plus a second set of closing costs and title work. Disclosure is the sensible lean. The open question is whether a 140k fee on a 1.19m contract reads as normal to a commercial seller or reads as something he wants to renegotiate, and whether there is a middle path the room can see.
