Talk about learning lessons in the trenches.

I had a client interested in selling his business.  He also happens to be my landlord for my business office.  He had his business listed with an out of area real estate office for a couple of years with no showings or obvious interest.  His listing expired and we started chatting about what he planned to do next.  He didn't want to list locally -- being a small town, as soon as you list a business for sale people stop doing business with you.  So, I recommended that he work with a Commercial Real Estate Broker in Redding California.  Someone who I found to be very competent and really knows his stuff.  I simply don't know enough about commercial to be comfortable with a listing.

Well, long story short, instead of giving him a referral as I expected we ended up co listed on the property.  About 3 months after signing the listing I had a call on a different property from a prospective buyer and after chatting he decided he wasn't interested in that business -- so I introduced him to this recently listed business.  After a couple of months of trying to figure out financial options, the buyer and seller finally agreed on a contract.

45 days later, escrow has closed and I am exhausted.  The emotions ran high on this transaction.  A very nervous buyer getting into a business in difficult economic times and a Seller who was in charge of his business for 27 years now looking to let go of it.  This was more difficult than any residential transaction and I am really glad it's over.

The good news is that the Buyer and Seller seem to be happy with their decisions at this point and are cooperating nicely in the transition.

I had a tremendous learning experience.  I am extremely grateful to Jim Ramsay and Laurie Ames at Coldwell Banker Commerical -- without their help I could never have gotten this one done. 

Learning in the trenches is an exhausting experience.  But seeing the smiles on my clients faces (or maybe that's just relief) has been extremely rewarding.