We are working with an investor who wants to make an unsolicited offer on a property. We need to ask the Seller to agree to pay us a commission prior to presenting a LOI. Any advice or guidance on how to ask the Seller to agree to pay us a commission prior to presentation would be met with extreme gratitude. We, of course, can give basic terms as well as basic info on the Buyer (an experienced, solvent developer).

Thank you.

Who owns the property??

Contact the owner and try to get a listing agreement.If your buyer doesn't end up purchasing and the seller wants to sell you market it to others.

I have investors who get me to research properties all the time.Sometimes the sellers won't sell at the investors price but I know many who will.

I list the property and then sell it first to my investor who brought it to my intention.If they don't want it I mass market it to my investor list.

The property is owned by a large known publicly-traded corporation (in the business of real estate development). Issues with city and investors they brought in have halted building (it is essentially a vacant lot). Rumor is that they are contemplating selling this and other properties in the immediate area. However, no decision has yet been made. They normally work with a particular broker. We have a very viable buyer interested, but we will have to negotiate a commission with this entity prior to submitting the LOI. Plan on making a phone call to the VP in charge of properties saying we have a buyer interested, but would like to talk about commission first....and, yes, that statement is awkward and I am trying to think of something a bit smoother. Fairly certain that the first person I speak to at the corporation will not be the person we ultimately have to deal with.

Any advice on some opening lines? Thank you for replying and offering your advice and thoughts. I greatly appreciate it.

If they are a big corporation they should have a form that covers this type of situation as I am sure they have ran into it in the past.

If your buyer only wants one parcel make sure the commission agreement covers ALL parcels.This way if the investor decides to buy up more of the development you will get paid for each piece.

On the commission land here is usually at 10% commission.Start there because a corp will likely try to cut you down in your fee.So you need to start high so if they go for it you do really well but if not you still hit your goal number of 8,7,etc.

What entitlements run with these parcels?? What kind of entitlements would the investors buying want??

Usually a purchaser won't touch land until they know they can get the site plan and entitlements they want for their use.If it's a land bank investor they just will want to buy on a low basis and hold and wait for the market to come back to cash in.