This is a fascinating story of how using a cap rate allowed us to value and sell a foreclosed golf course, and it helped my private investors avoid a loss and actually make a profit.

There are three methods of valuing income property – the cost approach, the sales comparison approach, and the income capitalization approach.  When the appraiser has arrived at a value using each approach, he then has to reconcile these three valuations to arrive at his final conclusion.

It is important to note that the appraiser must not just average the three results.  Instead, the appraiser should choose the most reliable approach to value and then temper that conclusion with the results of the two other approaches.

Now when valuing a fairly standard property type, like an apartment building, appraisers tend to rely the most heavily on the sales comparison approach.  For how much have other apartment buildings in the area sold?

Since there are bazillions of apartment buildings, the valuation process is generally straight forward. How much did nearby apartment buildings sell for per door?  (Fancy CREF way of saying “per unit.”)  What was their gross rent multiplier?

The cost approach is the valuation method least often used, mainly because it is too much work for appraiser.  Too often the appraiser just weenies out of using the cost approach, citing the bull stuff excuse that it is too difficult to “estimate depreciation.”  

About four years ago, we made a $2.75 million loan on a gorgeous golf course in an affluent suburb of Chicago, a golf course course with a replacement cost of $13.2 million (according to the county). Unfortunately the borrowers defaulted, and we foreclosed.

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At first, the real estate brokers were telling us that our golf course was almost worthless.  Several thousand golf courses had already come back in foreclosure nationwide over the past decade, as Tiger Woods self-destructed and the sport waned in popularity. 

“This golf course sold for just $2 million,” the real estate brokers would tell us  “This other one sold for only $1.5 million – about the value of Midwest farmland.”

But wait a moment, we reasoned.  Those golf courses were all losing money.  They had lost money for a decade.  Our golf course was actually profitable.  (Our borrower had simply been over-leveraged.)

Those foreclosed golf courses were also located in inconvenient, middle-income areas.  The folks living in the surrounding neighborhoods of those foreclosed golf courses were mostly blue-collar folks who didn’t make nearly enough money to join a golf club.

Far more importantly, however, the “sales comps” were all sales where the seller had a gun to his head. Think back to the movie, The Godfather.  That movie producer did NOT want to cast Jonny Fontaine (Frank Sinatra) in his movie… until he woke up to find the head of his beloved horse under the sheets of his bed.

Folks, you cannot use as a sales comparable a sale where the seller was just 48 hours from foreclosure. Part of the definition of fair market value is the proviso that … “neither the buyer nor the seller was under undue pressure.” 

Okay, so we can’t use foreclosure sales, REO sales, and sales on the cusp of foreclosure as sales comparables.  These sellers were all under undue pressure.

But what do we do when very few profitable golf courses have sold in the preceding three years?  There were simply no un-pressured sales to use as comp’s.

This is when I personally stepped in and started marketing the golf course based on the income approach. “Buy this Course and Earn a Whopping 9.75% Cap Rate!”  You will recall that a cap rate is just the return on his money that a buyer would earn if he paid all cash for an income property (allowing for about 3% of Effective Gross Income to replace the roof and the HVAC units as they got tired).

Holy moly!  The course sold for $3.2 million within just 10 days of marketing. Prior to that, our real estate broker was telling us that we had to sell this trophy golf course for just $1.6 million.  The real estate broker was trying to rely entirely on the sales comparison approach to value.

I personally hope the deal falls through because the net profit to our golf club just keeps skyrocketing.  If we had waited just six more months, I am convinced that we could have sold the course for $4.8 million.

The lesson to be learned today is that the sales comparison approach is NOT the only way to value real estate.  People buy income properties for the income they generate.

By the way, I begged the buyer to allow me to buy part of the course based on that paltry $3.2 million purchase price.  I suspect that he laughed at me.  Clever boy.