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27 May 2009

Conversion joins Sperry Van Ness/R.M. Moore

A pair of local real estate firms are moving forward on a merger that was 14 years in the making.

Sperry Van Ness/R.M. Moore Real Estate Co. is joining forces with Conversion Properties in a marriage that brings together a partner from the suburbs and one from downtown.

Founded in 1995 by Roger Moore, R.M. Moore has a strong presence in West Knoxville, and also has focused on establishing a foothold in Sevier County. Conversion, on the other hand, was created by Joe Petre in 2006, and has been largely focused on the burgeoning downtown real estate market.

In an interview on Tuesday, Moore said that when he established his firm, the two men had a conversation about teaming up. It didn't happen at the time, but around the beginning of this year they had lunch, and the idea came up again. "We both kind of felt like it was a good match," Moore said.

Conversion will retain its own identity - mainly to handle residential listings - but its commercial business will be merged into the Sperry Van Ness system, and the company will move into R.M. Moore's office space on Papermill Drive. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Moore will become principal broker of Conversion, while Petre will remain president of that firm and be senior investment adviser with R.M. Moore.

The merger is the second major change at R.M. Moore in the past two years. In January of 2008, the firm announced an affiliation agreement with California-based Sperry Van Ness, and both men cited the benefits of that affiliation, particularly when it comes to marketing and technology tools.

Petre said he was looking at spending a large amount of time developing his firm's brand and ramping up technology, and that he was attracted to the platform R.M. Moore had in place. In addition, he said the two companies seemed like a natural fit.

"The more our people are together, the more we find it really blends well," he said.

27 May 2009

R.M. Moore lands office management dealKNOXVILLE -- What better way to celebrate a merger than by picking up a big office portfolio?Sperry Van Ness/R.M. Moore — which this week announced a merger with Conversion Properties — has inked a deal to provide management and leasing for The Terraces and Crossroad Commons, office properties in West Knoxville.It will also provide management services for Pine Ridge Office Park, in Oak Ridge.According to a news release, The Terraces is just off Cedar Bluff Road and has eight buildings of Class A space, while Crossroad is also located at the Cedar Bluff exit and has four buildings.News Sentinel business reporter Josh Flory has more on the office deal and more on the merger of Sperry Van Ness/R.M. Moore and Conversion Properties on the Property Scope blog.

20 April 2009

Creating opportunities in distressed timesThe slumping economy is affecting commercial property, but that could be an opportunity for some local firms.As businesses continue to struggle in the a global recession, California-based Sperry Van Ness — which last year began an affiliation with local firm R.M. Moore Real Estate Co. — has geared up an “asset recovery team.” The idea is to offer a team with national reach to banks, investors and others who own distressed properties, with services ranging from brokerage to loan workouts to auctions.Roger Moore, president of Sperry Van Ness|R.M. Moore, said his office has handled troubled assets before, such as the Governor’s Crossing retail center in Sevierville.In that case, R.M. Moore helped find tenants for the property and stabilized it after a bankruptcy, a move that helped make the property more attractive in a sale.Moore cited a number of issues that could be troublesome for a commercial property — difficulty in refinancing a loan, a property conversion that got caught in a bad market or a tenant bankruptcy.“Knoxville historically has not peaked or bottomed out like other parts of the country,” he said, “and … even though it’s tough here I don’t think we’re nearly as bad as some of the other cities across the country. But it does have a domino effect, and I think we’re going to see more and more folks in our area having to deal with these kinds of issues.”While the slowdown in the residential market has been obvious, industry experts can also point to troubling data on the commercial side. Through the end of January, for example, the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Index was down 19.1 percent compared to the year before, and registered the largest one-month decline since the index began in 2000.Maribel Koella, principal with NAI Knoxville, predicted that retail properties will be the hardest hit locally, “because we were probably overbuilt in retail, and people quit buying.”Koella’s firm is affiliated with brokerage firm NAI Global, which is launching a series of auctions aimed partly at troubled assets. The first of the monthly auctions is slated for May and will include some $138 million in properties; Koella said she expects to have several Knoxville-area properties in future sales.She said the service represents a minimum cost for sellers — fees range from $5,000 for a property estimated at less than $1 million, up to $15,000 for a property worth more than $5 million — and each auction comes with a marketing budget between $500,000 to $1 million.Koella said she’s seen a big increase in troubled assets locally.“It’s (a) very, very sad time, and they’re companies that have been in the business 20 to 30 years in our area,” she said. “And some of them are companies that 18 months ago were in expansion modes.”From one local company’s perspective, the worst of times may be yet to come for the commercial segment.Rob Strickland, vice president/real estate for the Furrow Auction Co., predicted that when it comes to liquidating commercial properties through an auction, it won’t happen in earnest for a few more months.“Obviously that’s your last hope, is your business… I think (business owners are) holding on for dear life in hopes that some of this stimulus that the government’s doing is going to be of some benefit to them,” he said.

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