Transaction Trifecta: How a CCIM Turned a Single Opportunity into Three

Jaime Henson, CCIM, is a commercial real estate broker with Crye-Leike Commercial in Memphis and the 2025 CCIM Memphis Metro Chapter President. Her real estate career began on the residential side; her mother worked in residential for years. She found out it was not where she wanted to be.

“I had joined Crye as a residential agent in 2018. I found out really quickly that it was not for me,” Henson said. “My mother has been in the industry for 40 something years and so here I thought I could help her.”

A colleague suggested that she connect with Crye-Leike’s managing broker for commercial real estate. After the conversation, she decided to give CRE a try.

“I immediately fell in love with commercial real estate because I'm much more business-minded. I have an entrepreneurial background from owning other businesses.”

Just a few years later, Henson has deals and opportunities coming in, including a project that started as one transaction and turned into three over the past few years.

In December 2020, Henson’s client, a manufacturer of wood flooring, sought to buy a distribution warehouse that they could transform into a manufacturing warehouse. They found a building that was not for sale, but just for leasing. However, it was match – a 245,000-sf distribution warehouse in Smithville, Tennessee, a town about an hour awayu from Nashville.

“I asked if the owner would consider wanting to sell his building versus leasing it and he was agreeable,” Henson explained. “And so, we did close on the building on December 29, 2020. My sellers bought it for 10 and a half million at that time.”  

Fast forward to 2023 and Henson successfully represented the wood company when they sought to lease part of the warehouse space after a leaseback ended with the original owner of the building.

“We put in a tenant, and they signed a five-year lease with options to renew. It was $3.8 million for the lease for the five years.”

Yet, that is still not the end of the story.

A few things transpired and the wood flooring company decided to sell the warehouse as they opened new operations in Savannah, Georgia. Using her experience and knowledge as a CCIM Designee, Henson began the process of selling the building, first providing the opportunity to the tenant that was leasing part of the building. They had a 60-day window and did not bite; that was until other offers came in after the 60 days.

“We opened it up to the broader market to sell and in fact met with an agent and an investor out there at the property and actually got a letter of intent,” Henson said this action pushed the tenant to change their mind and act fast. “They got really quick with a contract and submitted it to purchase.”

“The letter of intent that we did receive [from the outside investor] was an all-cash offer. It was $14 million at that time and there was no financing because it was a 1031 tax exchange. So, it's pretty much a cash deal with no contingencies.” Henson said the current tenant offered a slightly higher amount of cash. “They added in a hundred thousand to get the deal done.”

While the transaction was originally intended to close by the end of December, Henson said it became a financing deal instead of all-cash and the closing occurred in January 2025.

Henson credits her CCIM education for playing a role in navigating these three transactions.

“It is great to have the investment side of the CCIM core education classes. We learned in 101 all about the financial analysis side of it. I felt like I could bring that to my owner, the seller,” Henson said. She highlighted knowledge she learned through The CCIM Institute, for example the use of cap rates. “Just because it's a cap rate does not always mean you go by the cap rate. It's great to have a cap rate but it's not always the be-all and end-all for getting investment properties done.”

As a Pin-holder, Henson knows she is regarded as part of the best in the industry.

“Having that education behind my name, I feel more confident in talking to investors as well as talking to agents about investment properties.”