200% Rule Strategy

The three-property rule lets an investor name up to three candidates regardless of value; the 200% rule allows more names but caps the total value instead. Exceeding that 200% ceiling without also satisfying the separate 95% rule invalidates the identification, which is the part investors miss when they add a fourth or fifth property without recalculating the running total.

The two rules aren't meant to be combined - an investor picks whichever one fits the situation, and switching from a three-property approach to a longer list midstream means the 200% cap applies from that point forward, not merely to the newly added names.

This rule tends to show up in a handful of recurring situations across Tampa Bay:

• splitting a single Westshore office sale across two or three smaller retail centers
• pairing an I-4 corridor industrial sale with a Water Street or Channelside multifamily unit
• layering a DST allocation alongside a directly owned replacement asset
• naming a backup property in case financing falls through on the primary target
• adding a Pinellas retail strip alongside a Hillsborough flex building on the same list
• spreading proceeds across submarkets to avoid concentrating risk in a single Tampa Bay corridor

Value for identification purposes is generally the purchase contract price if one is signed, or a defensible fair market value opinion if not. Tampa Bay's faster-moving submarkets - Water Street and Channelside multifamily in particular - can shift comparable pricing between identification and closing, so the number used on day 45 needs to be documented, not a hopeful estimate.

Investors who wait until the last few days of the 45-day window to price out every property on their list often discover the aggregate total has drifted upward simply because the market moved, which is its own reason to run the math early rather than at the deadline.

Investors often don't realize they've busted the 200% cap until closing, usually because they added a fourth or fifth backup property without rerunning the aggregate value math, or because a DST sponsor's stated offering size got used instead of the investor's actual allocation amount.

A list that looked comfortably under the cap on day 20 can drift over it by day 45 if a property's asking price moved or a broker's valuation opinion changed, which is why the running total deserves a final check right before the notice goes out, not merely when the list was first drafted.

The identification notice has to be in writing and delivered to the qualified intermediary, or another permitted party, before midnight on day 45. In practice, Tampa exchanges usually route this through email or fax coordinated with the closing attorney, and the QI's role here is recordkeeping, not advising on which properties to choose.

Naming several properties under this rule doesn't mean pursuing financing on all of them equally. Most Tampa investors line up serious lender conversations only on the one or two candidates they realistically expect to close, while keeping the remaining names on the list purely as identification cover in case the primary deal falls through.

That distinction matters because a lender who hears an investor is chasing four properties at once may read that as indecision rather than a standard exchange strategy, so it's worth being clear with a Tampa lender about which property is the actual target and which are backups.