Lenders · Landlords · Corporate Sellers
Industrial Real Estate Disposition: The Building and the Equipment on One Calendar
When the property and the equipment inside it are handled by two firms who have never spoken to each other, the seller absorbs the gap between them. The building goes under contract with a closing date the removal schedule cannot hit. Or the equipment clears first and a bare, unheated shell sits through a winter accruing carry. KD Auctions runs the asset disposition and coordinates the property track alongside it, working with your licensed real estate broker so both move on one schedule instead of two. To be clear about what we are: we are not a real estate brokerage and we do not list property. We are the asset-disposition lead who keeps the two sales from working against each other.
What We Do, and What Your Broker Does
The division of labor here is not a technicality, so it is worth stating in full before anything else on this page.
KD Auctions owns
- ✓Equipment appraisal, the serialized inventory of record, photography, and condition documentation
- ✓The disposition itself: managed auction, outright purchase, private treaty, or a hybrid
- ✓Removal supervision, rigging requirements, site access control, and final cleanout coordination
- ✓The master calendar that both the asset track and the property track run against
- ✓Facility exposure to our 500,000+ industry contacts, and every qualified property inquiry passed straight through to your broker
Your licensed broker owns
- ✓The listing agreement and the agency relationship with you
- ✓Property marketing, MLS and CRE platform placement, and signage
- ✓Showings, offers, negotiation, contract, and closing
- ✓Any real property valuation or broker opinion of value
- ✓All licensed real estate activity, without exception
We take no real estate commission and we hold no brokerage license. Compensation on the property side is entirely between you and your broker. If you do not have a broker in that market yet, we will say so plainly and work alongside whoever you engage. That is not modesty, it is the actual scope, and a firm that blurs it is telling you something about how it handles the rest of the engagement.
The Calendar Problem, Concretely
The failures are boringly predictable, and every one of them costs real money. A closing date lands three weeks before the removal window ends. Power gets shut off for the property transfer while machines still need it to be demonstrated and moved. The building buyer wants a vacant, swept facility and the equipment buyer needs a crane path through a bay door that is already scheduled to be sealed. A rigger damages a floor slab or a roof penetration two days before a walkthrough and nobody knows whose insurance answers.
What prevents all of it is one sequenced calendar, built once and agreed to by everyone. We review floor loading, door widths, crane access, and rigging paths before lots are even created, so nothing is sold to a buyer who cannot physically extract it. We establish a date past which utilities must remain energized and put it in writing. We write insurance certificates, rigging qualifications, and damage responsibility into the terms of sale rather than leaving them to be argued afterward.
There is a value argument in the cleanout too, and it is usually overlooked. A building shown empty, swept, and with the floor patched presents to a property buyer as a facility. The same building shown with dead equipment, drums, and a decade of accumulated maintenance debris presents as a project, and property buyers price projects accordingly. Clearing the building well is part of selling the building well.
Distressed Property: Lenders, Landlords, and Abandoned Plants
The hardest version of this work is the one nobody planned for: a facility that was walked away from rather than wound down. These arrive with equipment still in place, records missing, and a clock already running.
Tenant default and abandonment. A tenant vacates and leaves a plant's worth of equipment behind. What is actually there, what belongs to the tenant, what is leased or subject to a security interest, and what the landlord may lawfully do with any of it are four separate questions. We answer the first two with documentation and work at the direction of your counsel on the rest. We do not give legal advice and we do not sell contested assets on a judgment call.
Lender foreclosure and REO. A property comes back with collateral inside it, and until the equipment is gone the asset is a carrying cost with a liability attached. We document the premises as found, appraise the equipment under USPAP, dispose of it through a commercially reasonable and fully documented process, and hand you a settlement statement and a clean building.
Mid-shutdown walkaways. Plants abandoned partway through a wind-down, sometimes with material still in the lines and utilities in an unknown state. First visit is custody and safety, not price: photographs, serials, meter readings, what is visibly missing, and what has to be secured or de-energized before anyone else comes through the door.
Landlords facing a surrender date. A departing tenant leaves equipment they cannot move and you inherit a removal bill. Frequently that equipment has enough value to fund its own removal and then some, which is a materially better outcome than paying a hauler by the ton. The appraisal tells you which situation you are actually in.
Why an Industrial Buyer List Matters to a Property Sale
Our 500,000+ industry contacts are manufacturers, processors, fabricators, dealers, and operators. A meaningful share of them are looking for space at any given time: shops outgrowing a lease, companies consolidating two sites into one, buyers who need three phase service at a specific amperage, a crane rail at a specific height, a certain ceiling clearance, or a truck court that actually works.
That is a fundamentally different audience from the one a commercial real estate listing reaches. A CRE listing reaches investors, developers, and brokers evaluating a property as an investment. Our list reaches the people who would occupy it, and occupiers evaluate a building on whether it fits the machine they are trying to install, which is a question they can answer in a single site visit.
We are deliberate about what we do and do not claim here. Every auction campaign gives the facility visibility to that audience, and any qualified interest goes directly to your broker to handle. We do not promise your building sells off our contact list and we will never tell you it will. It is additional exposure to a buyer type that is otherwise difficult and expensive to reach, layered on top of the property marketing your broker is already running, at no cost to the property side of the deal.
Sell It Full, Sell It Empty, or Run Both Tracks
Equipment first, building delivered clean. The most common structure. The auction or purchase runs, removal completes, cleanout finishes, and your broker markets a vacant, presentable facility. Best when the likely property buyer is an investor or a developer rather than an operator, and when the equipment's buyer pool has nothing to do with the building's.
Turnkey, sold as an operating facility. Building and equipment sold together to an operator who intends to run it. This is where an industrial buyer list earns its keep, and where a USPAP-compliant equipment appraisal makes the combined price defensible to both sides and to a lender financing it. It is rarer and it takes longer, but when it lands it usually clears more than the two sold separately.
Parallel tracks. Both routes run at once, with the auction structured so it can be narrowed or postponed if a credible turnkey buyer surfaces before the sale closes. This requires the auction terms and the property listing to be drafted with each other in mind from the start, which is the entire reason to run one calendar.
Phased, for multi-building sites. Campuses rarely exit as one transaction. We sequence building by building so occupied space keeps operating, the first parcel clears while the rest is still in use, and the equipment in each building moves against that building's own date.
Appraisal, Documentation, and Fees
Our appraisals are AMEA-certified, USPAP-compliant, and accepted by lenders, courts, and the IRS, with Orderly Liquidation Value, Forced Liquidation Value, Fair Market Value, and Replacement Cost New opinions available desktop or onsite. One honest limit on that: we appraise machinery and equipment, not real property. Real property appraisal is a separate discipline requiring a separate credential, and when you need one we will tell you rather than let an equipment appraisal be stretched to cover a building it does not cover.
On distressed and institutional engagements the documentation is the deliverable. You receive the as-found condition record, the serialized inventory, segregation and separate treatment of leased or third-party assets, the complete marketing record with campaign artifacts retained, bidder registration and per-lot bidding history, and a settlement statement showing gross proceeds, buyer's premium collected, itemized expenses, and net, reconciled line by line against the inventory.
Our fee on the asset disposition is tailored to the engagement and quoted upfront, and most sellers pay nothing out of pocket. There is no fee to you for the property coordination itself: it is part of how we run a facility exit, not a separate line item. Founded by Michael and Arlene Treger in 1996, KD Auctions has run hundreds of auctions since, with hundreds of millions in machinery sales behind it, and is licensed and bonded in every state that requires it.
Credentials & Standing
KD Auctions is auctioneer licensed and bonded in every state that requires it, and carries professional liability and errors and omissions coverage. Our appraisals are AMEA-certified and USPAP-compliant, and are accepted by lenders, courts, and the IRS. We are members of MDNA, AMEA, NAA, and NABT, and credential documentation is available on request.
Request a Confidential ConsultationCommon Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Are you a real estate brokerage?
No. KD Auctions is an industrial auctioneer and appraiser. We do not hold a real estate brokerage license, we do not list property, and we do not represent parties in a real property transaction. We are the asset-disposition lead on a facility exit, and we coordinate with your licensed broker, who performs all licensed real estate activity.
Do we still need a real estate broker if we engage you?
Yes. The property transaction requires a licensed broker and that work stays with them. What changes is that the equipment sale, the removal schedule, the cleanout, and the property timeline get run against one calendar instead of colliding. If you do not have a broker in that market yet, we will tell you so and work alongside whoever you engage.
Can you sell the building and the equipment to a single buyer?
That structure exists and we support it, with your broker handling the real property side of the transaction. It works when the likely buyer is an operator who wants installed capacity rather than an investor who wants an empty box. A USPAP-compliant equipment appraisal is usually what makes the combined number defensible to the buyer and to a lender financing it.
Our tenant abandoned the building and left equipment behind. Where do we start?
With documentation, not with disposal. We get onsite within 48 to 72 hours, photograph and serialize what is actually there, note condition and what is visibly missing, and flag anything that looks leased, consigned, or subject to a security interest. What you may lawfully do with abandoned property is a question for your counsel, and we work at their direction. We do not give legal advice and we do not sell contested assets.
Do you charge a commission on the real estate?
No. We take no compensation from the property transaction, which is between you and your broker. Our fee applies to the asset disposition, is tailored to the engagement, is quoted upfront, and most sellers pay nothing out of pocket. Coordinating the property calendar is part of the engagement rather than a separately billed service.
Can you appraise the property itself?
No. Our AMEA-certified, USPAP-compliant appraisals cover machinery and equipment. Real property appraisal is a separate discipline with a separate credential, and we will not represent an equipment appraisal as covering a building. Where an engagement needs both, we deliver the equipment appraisal and tell you plainly that you need a real property appraiser for the rest.
How do you keep equipment removal from blowing up our closing date?
By building the removal window backward from the closing date rather than forward from the auction, and by putting the constraints in writing before lotting begins. That means an agreed date past which utilities stay energized, rigging and insurance requirements written into the terms of sale, crane and door access reviewed before lots are created, and supervised checkout so nothing leaves except against a paid invoice. Where the dates genuinely cannot both be met, we say so early, while an outright purchase with removal in 1 to 2 weeks is still an option.
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