The Background

This Wendy’s net lease sale at 40950 Ryan Road in Sterling Heights, Michigan closed at $1,575,000. The asset is a 3,120 square foot freestanding building on 0.37 acres, sitting on a hard corner at a signalized intersection as a pad site to the shopping center behind it. We represented the seller.

The Problem We Had to Solve

The seller received notice that Wendy’s, the sole tenant, intended to vacate. In one letter, a stable income-producing net lease asset became a property facing vacancy with no guaranteed income stream. Timing is everything from that point forward. A single-tenant building that is going dark loses marketability fast, and the longer it sits with a known vacancy attached to it, the harder the listing gets and the wider the pricing conversation becomes.

What We Did

We did not put it on the open market and wait for the vacancy story to travel. We went to the one buyer for whom the vacancy was close to irrelevant: the owner of the shopping center this property fronts.
The building sits as a pad site to their center. Controlling the parcel directly in front of your own retail, on a signalized hard corner, has strategic value whether Wendy’s stays or goes, because whoever owns that pad decides what gets built or leased on the most visible piece of the property. Knowing who has a strategic interest in one specific corner, rather than just who is buying quick service restaurant product in general, is what turned a vacancy problem into a short list of one name. The property went under contract within 24 hours of a signed letter of intent.

How It Closed

The sale closed in under 60 days from contract execution at $1,575,000. The seller got out ahead of the vacancy instead of marketing a dark building.

The Silber Difference

Speed is not a marketing line when a tenant gives notice, it is the entire strategy. Every week between the vacancy notice and the closing is another week the market gets to price the risk instead of the real estate. Going from letter of intent to contract in 24 hours and to closing in under 60 days only happens if you already know who wants that corner before you have to go looking.