[Note: To follow is an excerpt of an interview with Walter Helm, Managing Director of Sperry Van Ness. Walter, the first Sperry Van Ness agent recruited to the Sacramento market, has more than 25 years of industry experience and has conducted more than 150 career transactions valued in excess of $250 million. To listen to the show archive or download an MP3, go to www.IncomePropertyInvestmentTalk.com/012809.]

Mosca: You have adjusted to every market and every real estate cycle and your advisers have guided their clients towards maximum results for their assets in over 160 different marketplaces across America. That said, could you talk about Sperry Van Ness’s experience as it relates to this new asset recovery team that you’re announcing here on the program?

Helm: Sperry Van Ness is a unique company in commercial real estate brokerage and advising for clients. We are the only company that’s really based on a full cooperative approach amongst all of the agents. We created our Asset Recovery Team because of what we do. We have one point of contact for any individual bank or person with a distressed asset that needs assistance with analysis, selling or negotiating. Our Team allows this individual to draw upon the expertise of the thousands of agents and the thousands of years of combined experience with major corporations, major government institutions, and bankruptcy courts. Some of us are receivers, some have been trustees, but we’ve all had access to people who have developed properties and understand different parts of the process. By working in a collaborative environment, one Sperry agent can have access to all of the expertise of people that worked through the previous downturn when the government took over many failed banks and had to convert those assets to cash. We understand how that works and we are able to work on the expertise that we have that really is something very unique in the industry. It’s great being able to help clients and help them figure things out. If I don’t have the answer and don’t have the expertise, I do have a team of people that I can pick up the phone and call and get the answers.

Mosca: Can you address some of the specific concerns of investors and organizations as they deal with these troubled times we’re in right now?

Helm: We look upon this as a real opportunity to help our clients with the expertise that we have developed over the years of being in situation like this. Old-timers like me have been through a downturn when banks were closing and loan portfolios were being sold for pennies on the dollar. Most people that are in the business now have never been through one of these downturns. They don’t know what to expect, they don’t know what’s happened, and they don’t understand that the vast amount of money and equity that will change hands in the next two years is going to change the whole face of commercial real estate. We expect in the next two years, more equity, more money will be made in commercial real estate than in the next 10.

Mosca: Is a big part of the services that you deliver now through the asset recovery team client consultation, risk analysis and asset evaluation?

Helm: The biggest risk we have right now is having a loan come due and not being able to make the payments. Once you get to that situation, you are really in danger and your risk of having a major loss is huge. You can have a loss on your property and then your credit that could follow you for years. We work very carefully to talk with our clients, talk about the properties they have, and make sure that they are not in a risk situation. I wrote a letter this morning to a service for a commercial backed mortgage security. Despite being told you can't have anything adjusted because it's sold to a hundred people, we help our clients understand that things can be done, that we can help them, and we can get interest rates reduced. We can get payments reduced and help them keep their property and mitigate their risk.

Mosca: I mentioned the variety of the different services that you provide. Can you talk about accelerated marketing and how that impacts the folks listening to us right now?

Helm: Accelerated marketing is a very unique method to dispose of properties being offered by a major brokerage firm. Through your local Sperry Van Ness agent, one point of contact, we have access to a division or a company that is called our accelerated marketing group. This is a group of skilled, experienced professionals that have been doing auctions, sealed bids, accelerated listings, and online auctions for commercial real estate for more than 25 years. They've sold millions of dollars of property, last year over 100 million in assets disposed of. They are able to get prices that most of the sellers are surprised at how high we can get because of how effective we are and how good our procedure is. Because of the way we approach the business of Sperry Van Ness, we get it out to all other brokers so every other broker that has a buyer is invited to come in, is invited to bring their clients to the auctions, and they can get paid from us. Unlike most of the competition, we welcome them because they bring in more buyers and get us higher prices for our clients.

Mosca: Do you conduct asset evaluation and due diligence upfront?

Helm: Absolutely. It’s very important for us to do a proper evaluation so that we have realistic expectations on that asset. With the experience that we have in the market and the number of agents that we have that have valued different properties, we can draw upon the expertise of our agents throughout the nation to see where these are trading. We can then give all of the proper information to potential bidders so they will bid as high as possible to get the most cash back for our clients. There are cases when we will do some marketing of an asset that may take some more extensive due diligence after the fact and allow them a week to close. If they do not close then it would go to the second bidder. Most of the information that is needed by any buyer is provided upfront. The asset recovery team all has been owners of properties and buyers of properties. They know what is needed to make a decision so that they make sure all of the information is provided in a nice package so that the buyer is very informed. That's a critical element. The better the buyer is informed, the more the buyer is willing to pay for something because it minimizes their risk.

Mosca: What are workout resolutions and what are some of the steps in that process?

Helm: The workout resolution is working with a client that has a property that is not able to make debt service due to vacancy or some other downturn in the local area that lowers rental rates and leads to a problem when the loan is coming due. We will work with the client to first assess the property, and then give them advice on how we can best manage the property. I had one client where we replaced the management company because it made a very big difference. We put in MaxCap out of Salt Lake City, people that we know and trust and it changed the property so now we are able to make the mortgage payments. That’s jus one area where we can make a difference.

Mosca: What is your golden nugget?

Helm: Sperry Van Ness is unique in their asset recovery team by drawing upon the cooperativeness of our culture in our company. Unlike any other service, or any other company, you come to one agent, they have access to all the information, the agents cooperate, the agents share information so you have the latest information with some of the top people in the industry.

Published: February 12, 2009

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Peter L. Mosca is president and founder of BAK Communications, Inc. He has over 22 years of communications and media consulting experience, serving a variety of nonprofit organizations, including the CCIM Institute and the REALTOR Association on all three levels – national, state and local. He is the Spokesperson Trainer for the CCIM's Jay Levine Academy and trains hundreds of residential REALTORS nationwide to be effective industry spokespeople. He is consistently ranked as "excellent" by about 90% of those who attend his presentations. While his principal consulting focuses are public speaking and media relations development and content delivery and management, Peter is also the host of the Voice America Network's weekly radio program, "Income Property Investment Talk," a one-hour program that brings the powerhouses of commercial and residential real estate to property investors every Wednesday at 11 a.m. EST. Peter is married 17 years to his wife Barbara. They have two children: Ashley, 15 and Kelli, 12. Hence, the name BAK Communications, Inc.