Thats very impressive portfolio. I for one will tell you to stay away from anyone looking to bundle this for you. They bundle at an agreed to price and then wham you for 30% less then agreed. They aren't the purchaser mind you-- they bundle for others (like folks in NYC- 36th floor penn station building)DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME DEALING WITH THESE SCAMMERS)

I like the concept of suggestion to break them out. SFH's and then multi. You arfe more then experienced in dealing with offers from your portfolio.

Any chance you have an atty you deal with that also does closing for large purchasers? I would try to find that group of atty's who do package deals. You'll probable have to call several to find the right one to talk to or put on retainer.

Keep us informed will you?

When I was selling a bunch of SFR and a couple of apartment buildings, only around 50 apartment units total, I made a plan based on "what I wanted to do with the Money".

With my Single Family Homes, I decided to sell them and carry back the first mortgage with a pre-payment penalty of 6 month un-earned interest.

Because I sold the house myself, there was no Listing or Selling agent commissions. I simply ran an add in the local news paper (This is before the internet took off and everyone had their own computer).

In my add I said, "Seller Financing with a buyers 15% down payment. Easy to qualify. Why pay rent when you can own a home of your own"!

My phone would not stop ringing. Since I had 5 houses I wanted to sell, I used the same add to show the interested party's my other properties once one was sold.

I was asking full market price, no discounts because I did not charge points for financing the whole thing. I saved the 6% commission so I could ask for only 15% down. But I had an impound account to cover the insurance and taxes. This way I could make sure there was insurance and it was paid. I was named as the mortgage holder and a payee for any claims.

With my apartments, I got a large broker with lots of minions to do cold calling. They were wroth their commission.

Sell and carrying back the mortgage saved my for having to pay a million dollars in long term capital gains tax, state tax and the recapture right away. Since most mortgage payments for the first 10 years is mostly interest.

Greg,

Congrats on a great portfolio. Everyday Millionaire!

For sure look at 1031 Exchange or get killed with taxes. Sell a chunk and buy a triple net lease warehouse. Still have income but no responsibilities. Repeat.

Learn at apiexchange.com - the company I use.

I looked at buying (thru a 1031 exchange) a Home Depot and some medical buildings. I figure they will be around paying rent for a while. Nursing home biz is growing with the Silver Tsunami. MANY large, stable businesses do not own their buildings.

Make money while you vacation!

BRAD

Very impressive portfolio. Without knowing what the 12 single families properties look like or neighborhoods they are located in. I would focus on the retail home buyer with a conventional loan and letter of loan approval from a bank. More than likely you will have to spend money on updates and improvements in order to hit the retail buyer.

Your 8% cap on multis seems like a good market value with in house management.

Loopnet would be a good listing site for all multi family.

Do you belong to a local REI or a L.L. association?

As plenty says, your portfolio reminds me of my own: a weird mix of "a little of this and a bit of that."

That pretty much eliminated institution investors for the the entire package, though they might be interested in your 18 units.

The other side of the coin is few "Ma and Pa" landlords are equipped to go from a handful to 200+ in a very short timeframe.

So... this limits your options.

If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't want to make this a huge hassle. As much work as it took to BUY 200+ properties, it's going to take at least that much hassle to SELL unless we get creative with how the listings are put together to attract qualified buyers who won't nitpick you to death.

My suggestion is break them up into manageable chucks of between 10-30 properties per batch. Mix the best units in with the worst so you don't end up with someone cherry-picking out all the best ones and leaving you with the dumps that linger on the market forever. Make is a "take all or take none" deal.

The price-points of 10-30 properties should help save you from inexperienced looky loos fresh out of some guru seminar who just want to crawl through your houses and disrupt your tenants, all to find out after countless wasted hours that they want to low-ball you and demand owner financing on top of it. By that same token 10-30 properties is probably in the ball park for loose cash from other successful investors who can eyeball the package and know pretty well straight up if it's worth it or not and have access to a pool of cash.

But then again, it really depends on your goals. If you just hate day-to-day management, have you thought about keeping them and hiring a good property manager? Can't find one? Maybe train one yourself!

One trick I found is pricing packages around the 1% Rule. So $50K of rents would be priced at $5 million, etc. This should be enough to attract serious investors. They don't call it the "1% Rule" for no reason: investors know it and realize that's as fair a deal as one often finds when there's a large number of units, and they'll cash flow okay too.

What is your plan for the proceeds? 1031 into something bigger with less hassle? Maybe a triple net (NNN) lease building like a doctor's office or nation-wide chain would rent, and all you do is pick up the check each month? Cruise the world for 5 years?

Welcome to the sellers club.

Greg,

I don't know if the hedge funds are still buying but a few months ago I was contacted by 2 major buyers (45,000 homes nationwide, buying 1,000 per WEEK!). They each wanted at least 100 of my rentals.

Their quick estimate was to pay cash, use the Zillow Price minus 6% commission and a few more percentage off for volume prices.

I asked if they had the money and he replied "billions".

BRAD

Greg please read my post the first paragraph.

As mentioned above these scammers are advertising buying 1000's-- there scam artists and after you spend 45 or 60 days thinking it's going through they pull the rug. There escape clause: DUE DILIGENCE allows them to get out of any offer.

You take a bigger "hit" selling to one investor than a broker will charge to list them individually.

Greg,

The first and most important thing you need to do is talk to a good real estate tax lawyer/cpa.

We have lots of good ideas in this group, but, selling 200 doors puts you in a completely different class from most of us.

The guy doing your taxes this year might be great, but, he is not the guy you need to structure a sale of this size.

You did not work this hard to write a multimillion dollar check to the irs.

A sale like yours will involve a very specialized skill set.

A good real estate tax lawyer will structure the sale in such a way that you will pay the least amount of taxes legally possible.

They will be very expensive, but, they will literally save you millions.

I would talk to several lawyers before choosing one.

You could start with John Hyre. John is a lawyer and cpa who specializes in real estate and minimizing tax liability. He has talked at a couple of the Mr Landlord conversations.

Let me know if you want another name.

Once you figure out how to pay the least amount of taxes legally, the next part of this is figuring out what type of legacy you want to create with this wealth. Do you want to give it to your kids or do you want to set up a multi generational legacy fund/trust or create and fund your own charity?

I have a successful friend who made a handsome profit off of an IT business he built up and sold. When he cashed out, he gave each of his managers a million dollar "Thank You" bonus. He said he never would have made it without their help. I have always thought it was an especially classy and thoughtful move.