Acquisition, Lakeland, FL: unstuck after twelve months on market
An out-of-state sponsor and seller, no qualified buyer for a year, and a broker whose deal was running out of runway. Underwritten in a day, matched within a week, closed in 32 days with a local community bank on a recourse structure.
The situation
The property had been listed for twelve months without a qualified buyer coming forward with financing that would close. The sponsor and the seller were both based out of state, which had already slowed every prior round of diligence, and the referring broker had a deal that kept stalling the same way: interest, but no lender willing to move at the pace or leverage the deal needed on a recourse structure. The seller was running out of patience, and the broker needed a desk that could move before the deal died.
What we did
We underwrote the file the day it arrived, sizing to the binding constraint rather than the leverage the sponsor originally asked for, and building the credit narrative a committee would need to say yes quickly. That package went to market against maintained appetite data and found the right lender within a week: a local community bank whose portfolio and risk appetite matched the asset directly, rather than a national shop working through a generic pipeline.
The outcome
Thirty-two lenders were reviewed before the desk identified the strongest fit. The loan closed in 32 days total, from underwrite to funding, at 6.38% and 85% loan-to-cost, terms the sponsor hadn't been offered in twelve months of shopping the deal independently.
Why it matters
An acquisition that looked stuck was not a pricing problem. It was a placement problem, made harder by an out-of-state sponsor and seller neither the market nor a generic lender pipeline was set up to move quickly.