A Due Diligence Checklist

Sometimes real estate brokers forget that the details associated with a transaction may be unfamiliar to their clients when they decide to buy or sell self-storage properties.  With this in mind, I thought I would take you through some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of a real estate transaction and focus on the due diligence requirements. Obviously, the devil is in the details when buying and selling a self storage property and due diligence can separate the winners from the losers.

Both the buyer and seller should work together to collect all of the required documents in order to move the transaction through the due diligence process. The sellers should start collecting and organizing the necessary due diligence documents well before the property is taken to market and the buyers should also provide the sellers with a list of requested documents at the time they submit an offer. Be prepared to be overwhelmed with requests for more information and more paperwork (as the days of little or no documentation loans are a thing of the past) even for the strongest of buyers. Below I have listed a few of the basic property-level documents that will get this exchange process going…..