The property at 5050 Meadowood Mall Circle property is occupied by Plumas Bank and has a 15-year absolute triple-net lease in place, meaning the landlord has zero responsibilities for maintenance and upkeep on the property.
Courtesy CBRE
Real estate investment sales continue to lag in Northern Nevada despite strong investor appetite for commercial properties, and creativity from buyers and sellers are what’s leading to many deals getting done.
Transaction volume for office, retail and industrial investment properties in the first quarter was $241 million, down slightly from $257 million in the same quarter of 2024. Aiman Noursoultanova, senior vice president of investments at the Reno office of CBRE, told NNBW that Northern Nevada’s fundamentals remain strong even though capital remains difficult to access.
“Interest level from the investment community continues to be strong,” she said. “The problem we have had in the past couple of years is because interest rates are so high that you had to bridge somehow. Sellers who had low-interest financing in place were not willing to work on pricing.
“Over the past year, a lot of sellers are offering seller financing and bridging that gap so that they can get better pricing, and buyers are willing to pay a little more because they can get low-interest rate financing if the seller carries. There is a lot of interest in that in private high-net-worth transactions, and it has helped our market move along.”
Pricing on investment properties is also adjusting to the current interest rate environment, Noursoultanova added. A few years ago, sellers giddy on the historically low interest rates of the early 2020s weren’t willing to budge on pricing after interest rates spiked. Today, sellers are more willing to make adjustments to help deals close, she said.
“Very few buyers are willing to create negative leverage. But if the difference between cap rate and existing financing is 25 to 40 basis points, I am seeing buyers step up and do deals anyways. But if the difference is bigger than that, then price adjustments are how sellers are able to achieve a closing.
“Creativity is the name of the game,” Noursoultanova added. “You have to be willing to look at different scenarios. For sellers, sometimes life events are driving the desire to sell, and it’s hard to time the market or time (family/ownership) trust issues. Those life events are probably at the forefront of decision making and the sales that have occurred on the private side.”
Seller financing not only limits the pool of potential buyers, she added, but it adds additional layers of complexity to real estate transactions – nothing a good real estate attorney can’t sort out, though.
“For sellers, as long as there are protections for them, they are moving forward and offering it as part of the package,” she said. “It adds an element of certainty, which goes a long way in today’s market, and they are able to get a little bit better pricing.”
There are two primary types of buyers in the Northern Nevada investment market, Noursoultanova said: Deal-hungry investors seeking sellers who are willing to negotiate on pricing in order to get to closing, and investors seeking stability in their commercial real estate portfolios. For the latter, Noursoultanova points to an investor that purchased 5050 Meadowood Mall Circle for $5.5 million. The property is occupied by Plumas Bank and has a 15-year absolute triple-net lease in place, meaning the landlord has zero responsibilities for maintenance and upkeep on the property.
The biggest sale of the first quarter of 2025 was Chicago-based Nuveen Real Estate’s acquisition of a five-property portfolio totaling almost 500,000 square feet on nearly 27 acres on Aircenter Circle and Longley Lane near Reno Tahoe International Airport. Link Logistics Real Estate of New York City was the seller. A representative from Nuveen declined to discuss the deal valued at $90 million.
On the retail side, S3 Development of Reno divested West End Commons to Faring of West Hollywood, Calif., for just shy of $19 million. The popular shopping center on Keystone Avenue was built in 2023 and is anchored by retailers such as Cracker Barrel, In-N-Out Burger, Mountain Mike’s Pizza and Panera Bread. On the land side, Barclay Group purchased just under 47acres on the southwest corner of Wingfield Hills Road and Pyramid Highway and plans to build a nearly 400,000 square foot retail power center at the site.
Shawn Smith and Sean Retzloff of Kidder Mathews represented Barclay Group and seller KM2 Development, Inc. in the $25.6 million transaction. The duo will also handle all future leasing at Kiley Ranch Marketplace, which will be the first large multi-retailer development in the Spanish Springs area since 2005.
Ben Nelson, senior vice president of multifamily investment sales with Kidder Mathews Northern Nevada office, told NNBW that buyers continue to look for deals on multifamily properties in Greater Reno-Sparks, but multifamily investment sales remain flat. Only five properties changed hands in the first quarter compared to seven multifamily sales in the last quarter of 2024. Sales volume was just $19 million versus $132.5 million in the fourth quarter of last year.
The largest sale of the quarter was the 80-unit Roselake Apartments on Lakeside Drive, which sold for $11.8 million.
“Buyers are looking at opportunities where sellers will finance, so that is in play, but given the fact that just five properties traded in the first quarter tells us that we are not too far off from last year, which was really a ho-hum year,” Nelson said.
“Things are still in flux because of interest rates,” he added. “Sellers want their price, but buyers don’t want to overpay. That’s the same story as last year … Buyers are looking at this market and would love to do something because of Reno’s story and where it’s been going, but nobody is going to buy unless they really want to be here, or they have money that they have to place, like in a 1031 exchange.”