Bid vs. Ask

Activity within the institutional commercial real estate market is picking up as a result of the abundance of capital seeking real estate opportunities. Property sellers who have been holding firm in their asking prices are being rewarded for their patience by buyers who are motivated to procure quality assets at perceived attractive prices. Rather than simply bid the price to unrealistic. From the buyer's perspective, each acquisition is a case study in strategic methodology, analyzing and pursuing numerous avenues to the transaction. Another approach is to wait for the lender to foreclose or a bankruptcy procedure to play out when an owner defaults and then purchase the property in court. In some cases, the institutional buyers have been motivated to invest and have paid premiums rather than allow the raised capital to sit idle causing them not to meet the fund investors' expectations. Transactions today reflect the combination of the deal-specific complexities faced by prospective sellers with the bid-ask convergence.