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HOUSTON-A 1031-exchange buyer from Los Altos, CA makes his first buy in the city, taking ownership of a 26,211-sf freestanding building in Northwest Marketplace Shopping Center. Located at 13838 Northwest Fwy., the one-year-old building is net leased to Minneapolis-based Northern Tool until 2014. Jerry Shluker, who traded out of multifamily assets on the West Coast, purchased the building from Dallas-based Granite Properties, which previously had sold the adjacent 250,000-sf Northwest Marketplace Shopping Center to Kimco Realty Corp. "The sale of the Northern Tool building is a continuation of the process that Granite started when it sold the shopping center," says Ralph Tullier, a vice president with Trammell Crow Co. who represented Granite Properties in the transaction along with Rusty Tamlyn. "We got some good interest for the building because a lot of buyers want to buy net-leased properties," Tullier tells GlobeSt.com. "We got more than five offers." He says that the acquisition is "a coupon clipper kind of deal." Shluker obtained a loan from Wachovia Bank to acquire the Northern Tool building, which has a tax assessment of $2.3 million, according to the Harris County Appraisal District. Doug Finney of Santa Clara, CA-based Cornish & Carey Commercial/OncorInternational represented Shluker.