On this page
Shaya Lowenstein writes this guide for owners deciding who should list their apartment building and on what terms. He is a licensed agent. That makes him one of the brokers you might interview, so the guide is built for testing any broker's answers, his included.
What the guide is for
It follows the decisions an owner makes before signing and during a listing. You get the numbers ready, question the brokers, read the agreement and the commission clause, choose an open or a quiet sale, check the offering memorandum, set the price, and know how to leave a listing that is not working.
It sits on the owner's side of the table. A listing agreement arrives as the broker's printed form, and every blank in it is treated here as a term you can negotiate, starting with the questions to put to each broker and the agreement read one term at a time.
How it is researched and kept current
Each legal rule links to the statute, the court decision or the agency page where it is written. Agency, disclosure and commission rules go to the California codes, licensing to the Department of Real Estate, and City rules to LAHD or LADBS. MLS rules are written by NAR and by each MLS rather than by a legislature, so they are cited to NAR's and CRMLS's own pages with the date each took effect.
A research file for the site records every claim beside the source that supports it and a note of what that source says. When a claim could not be confirmed, it stayed off the page. Numbers that change carry the period they apply to. You will find no typical commission rate, price per unit or time on market here, because no dataset exists that the guide could cite for one.
A page is reviewed when a law it relies on changes, and every page carries the date its wording last changed. There is no review calendar, and no attorney has reviewed the guide, so look at that date and at the linked source before you rely on a rule.
Who writes it
Shaya is a Multifamily Real Estate Advisor with Lyon Stahl Investment Real Estate, the responsible broker his license sits under. His California DRE license number is 01942326. The DRE's public license lookup will show it and name that broker, which is the same check this site asks you to run on everyone you interview. His office is at 830 S Pacific Coast Hwy, Suite D-200, El Segundo, CA 90245.
He came into the business in 2011 and has worked in brokerage, in operations and in development since then. His work centers on apartment buildings and land in Southern California, meaning buildings with room to add value or be repositioned, what zoning and land-use rules allow on a given site, and planning a portfolio over the long run for owners, investors and developers.
What he does, and what he does not
He is a real estate agent who lists apartment buildings for owners who are selling, on the open market or quietly to buyers he finds. A price opinion from him, like one from any licensee, is not an appraisal under Business and Professions Code section 11302.
He is not an attorney, a CPA or a tax advisor. Where a question on this site turns on the law or on your taxes, the page says which professional it belongs to, and that person should be your own attorney or CPA.
Judging any broker, him included
If you interview Shaya, hold him to the standard you hold everyone else to. Ask for a price opinion that shows the rents, expenses and sales behind it, a marketing plan with dates, and a draft agreement with the term, the commission, the protection period and the way out already filled in. Look his license up. Then set his answers beside the other brokers' and compare the reasoning, since a sound answer and a sales pitch can quote the same number.