Fueling the sale was a 10-year lease renewal, valued at $350,000, from Atlanta-based Home Depot Inc. for a 29-year-old building on 13.28 acres at 18100 Chisholm Trail near the Bush International Airport. "This was a listed transaction that was on the market for a couple of weeks--it wasn't on for very long," says Ross Cannizaro, an investment specialist with Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Brokerage Co.'s Houston office. He and Marcus & Millichap's Don Stringham brokered the transaction for the seller, SVH Enterprises Ltd., and the buyer, a limited partnership in Culver City, CA.

Cannizaro tells GlobeSt.com that the property, renovated in 2001, attracted about five offers. He says the buyer was selected because he was able to hold out on closing what turned out to be a fairly complex deal.

"We had some construction involved in the deal, on the land, but we didn't know the timetable for completion," Cannizaro says. "We couldn't have gotten an exchange buyer on this one, but the buyer we ended up with was very flexible." He says there are no plans for additional expansion.

Cannizaro says the buyer's track record also helped to win the deal. The California partnership owns one other property in the Houston area.