According to Muroff-Lewis president Andrew Muroff, the rental building was originally acquired back in the '80s with the intention of converting it to condos. "But the market in the late 1980s was not conducive to condo conversions, so the seller upgraded the apartments.

"As advisor to the seller, we recommended refinancing, highlighted the tax consequences of a sale versus an exchange and finally produced a section 1031 tax deferred exchange," Muroff continues. "A profile of potential investors was specifically designed to overcome the seller's unpleasant prior experiences with this type of transaction.

"Nevertheless, the reluctance of both the seller and the purchaser proved difficult and time-consuming to overcome," Muroff says. "And given a looming three-day delay at title closing, an approved unique staged mezzanine loan was shelved, triggering the necessity of a last-minute all-cash restructuring."

The seller was represented by Thomas Cohn of the law firm of Brach, Eichler, Rosenberg, Silver, Bernstein, Hammer and Gladstone. The buyer was spoken for by attorney Jeffrey Markowitz.