greetings

Its been a long while since i have been here and i have sold two homes during that time.the help you all gave helped me do a good job in serving my clients. now i am back i am a trustee for my church and we are selling the old church. i would like to know how to go about listing it and a main question that has presented is do we get a apprasial.we already have the state asessment value.we have permission from our conference we are methodist if that might help.i am a new agent 1 year last we.i am in maryland,coldwell agent.it has always been a pleasure to get your advise on the matters i have had and look forward to any help you can give.

thank you
david

An appraisal will not give you the value for the highest and best use of the property. Some churches sit in prime commercial locations and the value could be in future use.

It sounds like you are in over your head. Get some help from a local experienced commercial real estate agent.

It's basically a commercial property. Depending how old the church is and your community you might have to look at zoning requirements. I've done market analysis on the church I go to as they are toying with the idea of selling and building a new one. It's a little harder doing a cma on a church as it's not entirely like a regular commercial building and not residential. I've just used average sqft price of area commercial sales. Most likely you don't have many church comps around. The problem with church is depending on it's size and such. If it's a large one it can only really be used for one thing. A Church. And there's only so many buyers out looking for a church. An appraisal might be worth it if your church board feels like it. Around here the smaller churches that have gone up for sale have sold rather fast to new congregations looking to grow. Keep in mind though you will have to find a commercial lender if you have any buyers as your regular residential lenders won't be able to help you much. Also after I've worked with much frustration with other congregations on buying a church building expect lowball offers. All the congregations I've worked with always lowball saying if it's God's Will it will be done. They've yet to buy a church.

Last word of advice. It's like any other commercial property. Price it at the market or nearby. If the numbers work for some buyer they will buy it. It doesn't really matter the list price as long as it's not out of sight.

David,

The reality is you are over your head with this one. If you want some compensation go in and get a refferal on it or team up and split 50/50 with another more experienced person in your office.

The last thing you want to do is botch a sale at your church and relive that in your congregation for years to come. Talk about embarassment and lost refferals!!!

The key issue here as Bigtoe said is to get the most money for the property look at the highest and best use.

Step 1 is to define what you have. In other words go to your local planning and zoning department and get a current and future land use map. It will show if your old church is located in a residential only are or is on the edge of a commercial area or future commercial area with the map. The map usually has TYPES of commercial represented in different colors as well as different densities of residential.

If this is not located in a commercial area or on the outkirts of future land planning growth for commercial then you are more than likely stuck with residential or agricultural use.

Now that you have determined what type of use the property migth qualify for you look at how much land goes with the church and what land is connected around it that could be assembled together.

Basically I could go on and on. If there is alot of land a developer might build you a nice new church as part of the deal
and roll it into there costs. You really need someone who can help you with this. For the most part churches buying other churches usually have no to little money especially as older smaller churches being purchased are for startups. The value is generally more in tearing down the old improvement and building new on site.

Greetings

All of the advise thus far has been a eye opener.
i have did what was advised and contacted a commercial
agent in my office,but i still thank you all for this will also give me insight on watching how the agent handles this transaction.while sitting herecould he also include me in this transaction rather than me doing a referral,just wondering,
i will let everyone know the outcome and rest assured if i have anymore questions i will be back cause you folks are the best.

in peace
david

"while sitting herecould he also include me in this transaction rather than me doing a referral,just wondering,"

If you work for the same brokerage you could probably co-agent on it.If the reffering agent is from a different office you don't work under that broker os you would need to do a refferal most likely. You could do the refferal but explain you would like to learn the process and the commercial agent could then decide if they want the refferal under those conditions or not.

good luck-no legal advice

thank you very much
i have got the ball rolling my associate agent will contact my pastor by wedensday and i have a commercial lender also in place
i probadly will be the co agent.but will weigh all options.i do believe i will go ahead and get my commerical designation cause in near future i will have a daycare up for sale[business] and also the rental of the building it occupies.when that comes around i will be back
in peace
david

Hope it all works out.

You should chime in more often and not just when you need help. Your experiences and fellowship just may help somebody else out. Give your knowledge back to the community.

Hello Claijamer, We recently sold an old church building in our community. We did not put a price on the building and instead put together a property portfolio on it and the area. We then sent this out to all the main church head offices. From there we had numerous enquiries and eventually a sale!