Reviewing what you already own
The starting point is a current picture: actual returns by property rather than assumed ones, lease expiration schedule across the portfolio, debt maturity schedule, and concentration by tenant, asset type and geography. This exercise routinely surfaces things owners did not know — a property returning well below its equity value, three leases expiring in the same quarter, or a loan maturing in a year when refinancing may be expensive. None of it is visible one property at a time.
Hold, sell, or exchange
Every asset should face a periodic test: what is it worth today, what return is it producing on that value, and what could the same equity earn redeployed elsewhere? A building bought for $1M that is now worth $3M and generating $150,000 a year is returning 5 percent on current value, not 15 percent on original cost. That is the number that matters for the hold-versus-sell decision, and it is the one most owners never run.
Planning the exit before you need it
The worst dispositions happen on someone else’s schedule — a balloon maturity, a partnership dispute, a health event, or a retirement that arrives faster than planned. Portfolios that transact well are ones where lease renewals are negotiated ahead of expiry rather than at the deadline, where debt is refinanced before maturity forces the issue, and where the owner knows which assets they would sell first if they had to raise capital in ninety days.