Acquiring All Units in a Condominium Complex

[William Donaldson]

I'm evaluating the opportunity to submit an offer for all ~100 individually owned condominiums within a complex built in the ~1960s. Most of the units are owner occupied, with a few investors like myself owning 1-3 units total.  Happy to elaborate more on the investment thesis, but the units are meaningfully undervalued due to resolvable issues. 

I’m interested in hearing from those who have gone down (or explored) a similar strategy for individually owned condominiums. A few key questions:

• - How were you able to get all (or a substantial majority) of owners to sell – above-market valuation %, sale/leaseback offer, other incentives, etc.?
• - Are there ways to incentivize any holdouts to sell? For example, once I have control of the HOA can I re-write the bylaws to, for example, quadruple the HOA fees due to paying higher management fees to a new management company (wholly owned by me)?
• - Similarly, are there ways to mitigate the risk of another investor trying to arbitrage the opportunity – e.g., re-write the bylaws to effectively eliminate the ability of other owners to rent out their property?
• - Did you consummate the transaction in a single close or a staged closing?
• - Were banks interested in lending on the opportunity, or did you have to go with a non-bank / bridge lender given limited-to-no debt service coverage at the outset of the project?

Appreciate any-and-all insight the community can provide!