Experience Leads to Top Results
PraiseBuildings sells more religious property than any brokerage in the Mid-Atlantic. On behalf of our religious clients, we have brokered millions of dollars' worth of land, churches, synagogues, temples, schools, parsonages, camps, and retreat centers.
Our clients cover a broad range of creeds and faiths. We handle all of the religious property disposition for the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church. We also represent the Archdiocese of Baltimore, along with various other denominations such as Lutheran, Episcopal, Baptist, and Presbyterian congregations, to name just a few.
Religious properties are different from residential properties, and require experienced professionals to address the complex needs of the sales transaction. Our team of commercial brokers understands how to work with property committees, and we know what makes churches sell. We can also advise both buyers and sellers on financing, zoning, use and occupancy, insurance, and the other unique aspects of religious property. We are the experts.
Informational PDFs
Our Ability to Market and Sell Your Property
The single most effective marketing tool we offer is our reach into the religious community. Because we perform a high volume of work as brokers, property managers, and consultants in the worship industry, we are able to gather solid information about the market place: who is shopping, who is ready to buy, who is ready to sell, and what lenders are willing to lend.
Our reach into the community is augmented by our ongoing marketing efforts, which ensure that we are always connected to local congregations – the benefit of being a niche brokerage. In addition to the fact that we sell more churches than any brokerage in the Baltimore-DC metro area, we own sister brokerages Maryland Land Advisors, SchoolBrokers, and EA Commercial.
Our breadth of coverage when it comes to selling commercial (and residential) properties provides added value for our clients: we are not limited to selling a church as a church. We can sell it as a school, a daycare, a catering hall, a community center, or multi-family residential – any adaptive reuse that is supported by zoning. We have the experience.
Because we sell land and commercial properties, we have strong ties to the developer and builder communities, and we are able to connect our clients with well-funded buyers, joint venture partners, and developers for projects that are unique, creative, and require outside-the-box approaches to marketing and deal-structuring.
It is one of our specialties.
How We Get the Challenging Transactions to Settle
The one thing that sets us head and shoulders above other real estate professionals is our ability to ensure that deals close. We are finish-line-focused, and we take charge of the hard work that can be required to get to closing – whether for our client or for the other side of the table.
One example of our dedication is the sale of our client’s $2.7mil church/school complex. It came to our attention the day before settlement that both the buyer’s agent and the title attorney had failed to confirm that the buyer had acquired property insurance. Anyone who has obtained commercial property insurance knows it can be a two- or three-week process; thus, we were sure that settlement would need to be postponed. But our Brokerage Director worked until 9pm the night before closing to secure insurance coverage. And she was on the phone – at the settlement table the next morning – ensuring the insurance agent had everything required to bind a policy immediately. To everyone’s surprise, the sale closed that day as planned. We serve our clients to the best of our ability; and sometimes we pull off a
minor miracle.
Our strategy for success is two-fold: we create and execute an extensive marketing campaign, and, once the property is under contract, we intensively manage the activities that will get the property to closing: corporate documents, inspections, repairs, financing. Church buyers often come to us underrepresented; they may have a residential agent who has no commercial real estate experience, and they often have no attorney, no CPA, no insurance broker, and no lender. That is the point where we take charge (even if the buyer is not our client), handling what we can in-house, and relying on our Rolodex of attorneys, CPAs, and lenders as needed.
As part of our work, we develop relationships with potential lenders. By knowing where financing may be found for hard-to-finance buyers, we are able to close more deals. Sometimes the lenders are local; but we regularly source larger faith-based lenders, who lend money to churches on a national level or who deal with church bond brokers.
A commercial real estate transaction requires a commercial brokerage firm. In our case, that brokerage is a team of commercial experts who have the connections, the experience, and the determination to launch a marketing campaign, structure a creative deal, negotiate a purchase agreement, and ensure that the transaction closes.