Raul Martinas, a professor of languages at Eastern University, owns a small office building adjacent to the university campus. He acquired the property 10 years ago at a total cost of $617,500that is, $96,500 for the land and $521,000 for the building. He has just received an offer from a realty company that wants to purchase the property; however, the property has been a good source of income over the years, and so Martinas is unsure whether he should keep it or sell it. His alternatives are as follows:

Keep the property. Martinass accountant has kept careful records of the income realized from the property over the past 10 years. These records indicate the following annual revenues and expenses: Martinas makes a $13,025 mortgage payment each year on the property. The mortgage will be paid off in eight more years. He has been depreciating the building by the straight-line method, assuming a salvage value of $78,150 for the building, which he still thinks is an appropriate figure. He feels sure that the building can be rented for another 15 years. He also feels sure that 15 years from now the land will be worth three times what he paid for it.

Rental receipts				$	175,000
Less: Building expenses:
Utilities	$	28,400
Depreciation of building		17,714
Property taxes and insurance		21,000
Repairs and maintenance		11,100
Custodial help and supplies		57,250			135,464
Net operating income				$	39,536

Sell the property. A realty company has offered to purchase the property by paying $185,000 immediately and $42,000 per year for the next 15 years. Control of the property would go to the realty company immediately. To sell the property, Martinas would need to pay the mortgage off, which could be done by making a lump-sum payment of $128,000.

Click here to view Exhibit 10-1 and Exhibit 10-2, to determine the appropriate discount factor(s) using tables.

Required:

Assume that Martinas requires a 12% rate of return. Compute net present value in favor of (or against) keeping the property using the total-cost approach. (Round discount factor(s) to 3 decimal places and other intermediate calculations to the nearest dollar amount.)

Would you recommend that he keep or sell the property?

multiple choice

Keep the property

Sell the property