I just saw this both on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.
Maybe Rich is just fishing.

Rich has had it for sale for some time now.

Rich is in his 70’s. I’m sure he’d like to retire…

Group buy???

11MM. Lol

We wish you well, Rich. You have served an important role for our little community for a very long time.

Looking at the pictures of the hoods, deck lids and door is like looking at a jar of Jelly Belly's. Ya gotta love the colors of 914's.

The problem is that the cost of storage is more than 3/4 of the parts are worth. I’m sure there is a lot of gems but all the body parts, hoods, targa tops, doors, etc aren’t worth moving. I don’t know his inventory but if he has engine cases, heads, early trans, exhaust, they aren’t worth loading in a truck, moving and then storing. And who wants to be the guy who sells it all for scrap, just to get to the good stuff.

Most of that is for the building and property.

It's in a prime location, right off the freeway.

What a treasure trove, hope it can be salvaged!

I'm afraid that Rich has a bit of a white elephant on his hands. He's a nice guy & I wish him the very best.

May be true, but based on how long and how it’s being offered, I’m betting any potential commercial real estate buyer is just looking at all the hoarded Porsche stuff as junk that will need to be gotten rid of before the property could be restored to a functional commercial property.

Instead of a discount to the buyer for the hassle of cleaning out the property it seems there is an assumption (at least in the link provided) that all the parts are “assets” adding value to the property just because they came from Porsches.

Most potential commercial buyers won’t see it that way. The unwillingness to sell parts in separate lots isn’t going to help.

It’s a shame really. No one here in the hobby wants to see all those parts go to scrap but there isn’t a viable Porsche business there for $11m +. As a result, it will probably sit and rot until the owner passes away and then the kids or appointed estate will simply scrap it.

This scenario is being played out all over the country. Commercial properties sitting vacant, under utilized because sellers aren’t able to come to terms with real value of the property or business.

If I hit the Lotto, I promise I’ll buy it, give away the parts to the 914 community like a massive version of Oscar’s Christmas Freebies. Then I’ll use the 8 bay garage as my own personal play area.

Understood, but smaller buildings (and homes) are all in the 1.5MM range, much smaller but not 10X.

My son deals with properties like that all the time (works at a private equity firm). I remember him telling me he wired 50 mill for 10 acres near an LA harbor. The stuff inside doesn’t get a second look. It either gets taken by the seller or cleaned out by the buyer. It has to be a lot more than used car parts to be taken into any kind of valuation.

The land/building should be separated from the P-car parts for maximum value. I wonder what they are worth separately? Would be a major hit to the hobby if the parts are scrapped. Auction off the parts as a single lot then sell the real estate. Typical way businesses liquidate without ownership transition. We just saw this with PartsHeaven and EASY.

It hurts me to know that he has parts I need but will probably never get a chance at them. I have been seeing this too more and more. Like I have been saying, your kids don't want your parts, stop hoarding and let them go.

Hire an auction house to clear the contents? There is worth there

I was there when we met in Campbell. I did a starter replacement in a back lot. If the whole property includes parking lots and other buildings, I would think the land is worth it alone. One could put a lot of high density housing in there. Rich gave me tour. Floors and racks of new parts. Does HPH still do service work?

How much value is in 50 or a hundred type 4 fans that I see in the picture? I suspect not much.

I suspect George knows based on how many he sells a year? I’m guessing. Maybe 2-5 sold per year.

Same for hoods, doors, targa tops. Most cars come with these parts and don’t need a replacement EVER.

We (the 914 cult) are a niche market and that’s being generous to even call us a niche.

There were only 115,000 914s built over a span of six model years. TOTAL! Probably 1/3 - 1/2 of them have already been scrapped and no longer exist?

For a sense of scale - there were 600,000 F-series pickup trucks built by Ford in 2022. One year.

So buying up a stash of 100+ of hard parts like hoods, fans, alternators, etc is largely a fools errand as Mark stated. I wish it weren’t so but it is what it is.

Here’s another way to look at it.

It’s not uncommon for a small business to sell for a price of 5x its annual bottom line revenue. Yah - I know this is CA and the property value may skew it a little.

So to go for 5x profits, that means the business needs to pull down $2m a year in profit after all else is paid including mechanics, a shop manager, property tax (not insignificant), utilities, insurance, building maintenance, and other miscellaneous overhead.

Now the question becomes what does the gross revenue need to be to end up with $2m profit? I honestly don’t know what that number needs to be in CA to net $2m in annual profit. Let’s be modest and say $4M to make the math easy.

So we have $4m that needs to be covered by 8 bays. That’s $500,000 gross revenue per bay.

Not implausible, but it sure isn’t going to happen by only working on vintage air cooled stuff, I suspect there just isn’t that much demand. Even in the Bay Area. So that means the shop has to do way more than just air cooled work.

Now that hoard of vintage air cooled parts is looking like even more of a boat anchor.

My math is fast and loose but you see where this is going.

I wish I could buy it and somehow make a go of it, but my napkin math $ business case doesn’t look too appealing.

When it sells, I’ll bet it sells for the value of the property alone which still won’t be cheap but I suspect it also won’t be $11.5M. Unless I hit the Lotto and start a 914 charity program.

Parts wise, you have to pay about 1/3 of retail to make it work. That’s for the commonly sold stuff. The stuff that sells once in a blue moon isn’t worth putting in the truck.

Dependant on the Structure values in HPH area; Pre-Fab metal bolt together structures on a slab do not command large property values*. In L.A. (example) I've shyed away from buildings such as these, due to banks that would neither write a mortgage/ nor allow me to borrow against it (if owned outright). Basically buying the deal for land value only.

*Your specific needs may be satisfied in utilizing a metal pre-fab structure *

Value of the "Goods" ...all you need is 1 buyer to make the golden deal.
Retirement...what's That ¿

I doubt any one would buy and try to make this biz work. Zoning and land use will come into play. Buying the parts lot and transporting it would not come cheaply. Not like you’re going to do it with a buddy and a Youhaul box truck. Well into the hole and sometime before you see a pennies profit.

There are several items to consider:

the value of the land (assuming it's not a brownfield and any zoning restrictions)

the value of the business ( can be wildly variable)

the value of the either priceless 914 stuff OR the value of the junk littering the property

the value of any/all structures

This will not be a simple transaction

Best of luck to both parties

‘Redwood City land values’ Gulp. Eye opening. Not that far from Menlo Park. YIKES!

That seems like the only reasonable option to get the most out of the inventory or maybe break it up into multiple lots to make it easier to sell.

Unless someone has the desire to take it on as a business, the parts are a liability not an asset. Even as an asset, it can only be valued at slightly more than scrap rates, definitely not at retail/wholesale values. It is not NOS. Very few will value the parts any other way and that is hard for owners to accept.

When a local Porsche scrapyard (Nineapart) in Ontario, Canada, closed its doors last year (the owner sold the property) he said he was getting roughly $100 to $150 per ton of steel. Of course that didn't stop him from charging me the going rates on parts from the last five 914s I picked over the day before they were crushed...

I could understand where he was coming from. He would have to pay $15k or more for a written off 911 and then have guys trying to buy parts for not viable nickel and dime prices. What baffled me was he still wouldn't let me at things like the 914 door handles and dashboard parts... even from the 914 that had folded in half. Not like he was going to harvest them for a retirement fund before the property changed hands in two weeks... go figure - tough to let go I guess. Best of luck to these guys...

Very expensive area. I have a buddy in Menlo Park who owns a nice home he built 10 years ago on some property he'd owned for 20+ years. It is no McMansion though and would be $700 to $800k in Spokane WA where I live. His Zillow value range is $3.1 to $4.1 million. For a 4 bed, 3,000 sq. ft. home on an 8,000 sq. ft. lot.

It would be fun to pick through that stuff, especially the wheel wall. I have one or two of many of those items pictured and will likely give them away at some point unless my son decides to take on a project car in the next few years. Sad.

It would take FOREVER to sell those used parts and then they would still not sell. Anyone restoring a 914 wants new parts unless not obtainable and with Mark and I making a bunch of them, demand for used has dramatically lessened.
Being the 914 parts hoarder I am, I would but them, but the transportation and loading and unloading would be monstrous and expensive

I'll let George have the last word on this one.