CCIM Feature
A Winning Exchange
Broker earns awards for his 1031 accomplishments.
Many CCIMs include Section
1031 tax-deferred exchanges in their business services repertoire. Some
savor the challenge of piecing together these oftentimes
hard-to-execute transactions, but few undertake more than a couple
exchanges a year. That is, unless you are Edgar Lopez,
CCIM, CPM, president of Investment Management Associates in Las Cruces,
N.M. He and a partner completed 36 exchanges in 2002, which earned them
the Society of Exchange Counselors' 2003 award for the most 1031
tax-deferred exchanges closed in one year. Lopez and his partner,
Edward Killian, listed, sold, and acquired new financing for each
transaction.
The society also honored
the duo for completing the year's most creative 1031 exchange
transaction, which involved 15 properties and 18 entities in five
states. The deal culminated in a Reno, Nev., condominium development. "All of my CCIM skills were utilized -- discounting notes, [internal
rate of return, annual property operating data], cash-flow analyses,
and last but not least, people skills," Lopez says.
The
team initially accepted a listing for a portfolio of national movie
rental stores located in various small markets. Soon, the retailer
decided to sell all of its properties, which sparked the idea for the
exchange. Lopez called a Reno-based client/investor who was selling a
local vacant infill site. Although multifamily developers had passed
over the site because of its steep price, market analysis uncovered
pent-up demand for condominiums.
The
team advised the landowner to exchange the vacant property for the
movie stores and secure a separate loan against a different property to
satisfy the retail portfolio owner's need for cash. Lopez then found a
condominium developer who was interested in working with the Reno
infill site on a joint-venture basis and closed the exchange
transaction. Ultimately, building
client trust was the key to the deal's success. The biggest challenge
along the way was "convincing the investor to go out of his well-known
local environment [Reno] and sell his land for many small properties
all over the United States," Lopez says. "And convincing the sellers of
income-producing properties to exchange for vacant infill land was
tough."
The team eventually parlayed their broker fees into a new partnership deal with the investor.
Lopez,
who started in the real estate business in 1973 and earned the CCIM
designation in 1986, credits his CCIM education and society membership
as catalysts for his career success. "I don't have a formal education.
Most of what I learned is through professional programs like CCIM and
Society of Exchange Counselors and working with CCIMs," he says.