29 Aug How ELIFIN® Sourced an Off-Market Industrial Sale for a 1031 Buyer in Broussard, Louisiana
Caden LeBlanc and Alex Ruch of ELIFIN® represented both the buyer and the seller in the sale of the 21,560 square foot industrial building located at 1244 Petroleum Parkway in Broussard, Louisiana.
Challenge
The property was never on the market. LeBlanc learned the building had recently signed a tenant and understood what that meant: a stabilized industrial asset in the Lafayette market with income in place and no public exposure. He called the owner directly and asked whether they would consider selling. They would.
That conversation created the opportunity and the problem at the same time. Another broker had reached the same conclusion and already had a buyer lined up. The seller set simple terms. The highest offer would take the building. There was no listing period, no marketing campaign, no competitive process ELIFIN could shape in its favor. LeBlanc had one shot to produce a buyer who could pay more than a bid that already existed.
Strategy
LeBlanc brought the opportunity to Alex Ruch, who was working with a Georgia based investor in the middle of a 1031 exchange. The fit was precise. A 1031 buyer operates against a fixed identification and closing calendar, which sharpens pricing conviction and raises the premium on certainty of close. What that buyer needed was exactly what 1244 Petroleum Parkway had become the week the lease was signed: a leased industrial building with income already in place and no lease-up risk to underwrite.
Ruch built the case for the asset on those terms rather than on recent comparable sales, which in this size range would have anchored the number well below what the property was actually worth to the right buyer. Pricing the building against its income and its scarcity gave the buyer a rationale to go above the competing offer and a reason to feel good about doing it.
The offer won the property. Getting from there to the closing table took more work than the contract suggested. LeBlanc and Ruch worked through several complications during the transaction, holding both parties and the deal together until it closed.
Result
The building sold for $3,440,000, or roughly $160 per square foot. The price is understood to be the highest per foot ever paid for an industrial building above 20,000 square feet in the Lafayette market.
The seller never listed the property, never ran a marketing campaign, and still sold at the top of the market. The buyer closed a 1031 exchange on a leased industrial asset inside a hard deadline. Neither result was available on the open market, because there was no open market. There was a phone call, and two brokers who knew what to do with it.
Leading Agents
Caden LeBlanc
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