The Vacancy Advantage: Dual-Track Sale for a Duplex + Penthouse ADU
The file
The building was a fully vacant duplex with a penthouse ADU above and an unwarranted garden in-law below: two units plus an ADU on paper, four units in practice. Full vacancy is rare, and it bought strategic room. Instead of choosing between selling the whole building or slicing it into TIC interests, I ran both campaigns at once, priced and sequenced so neither track undercut the other.
Presentation ran residential-grade: full staging, serious photography, floor plans and unit-level collateral of the kind usually reserved for single-family listings. That framing put the asset in front of end-users as a compound home with income, not a rental play. The buyer who won was an owner-occupant, above the top of the investor underwriting, and the deal closed at $4.325M without a fall-through.
Vacancy, ADUs, conversion paths: structure and timing decide the premium.
Value delivered
- 01Ran simultaneous campaigns: whole-building and per-unit TIC interests to capture both investor and owner-occupant demand
- 02Clarified unit legality (ADU vs. in-law) and pre-mapped compliance steps to reduce perceived risk
- 03Structured pricing ladder and sequence to avoid cannibalization and preserve negotiation leverage
- 04Produced high-impact residential-style collateral (floor plans, 3D tours, print media) to help buyers visualize outcomes
- 05Introduced fractional lenders and simplified TIC pathways to keep deals financeable and on track