Virtú Investments is entering Orange County in a major way, dropping $163 million for a multifamily complex in Laguna Niguel.
The Larkspur-based real estate firm bought Vilara, a 299-unit complex, from Alliance Residential at an average of $545,000 per unit, according to the Orange County Business Journal.
The $163 million price tag is the highest for a multifamily purchase in Orange County in 2021 so far.
Virtú Investments took out $75 million in loans from First Republic Bank to fund the purchase, the Business Journal reports. The five-story complex on Getty Drive opened two years ago. Rents in the complex range from $2,200 for one-bedroom units to $4,500 for three-bedroom units.
It’s the first buy in Orange County, Virtú Investments, which owns 19 apartment complexes in total and eight in California. Earlier this year, the firm bought complexes in Washington and Colorado. Virtú Investments operates more than 130 properties worldwide.
This has been a banner year for multifamily sales in Orange County. CoStar Group reports that there already have been nine deals this year topping out above $100 million, almost double the combined total of five deals that topped that mark between 2019 and 2020.
In September, multifamily investor Gelt acquired a rental complex called Oasis in Anaheim for $146.5 million, about a 40 percent hike from the complex’s 2018 sales price. The 312-unit Oasis came to around $4780,000 per unit, and was Gelt’s 18th acquisition in the state.
Multifamily properties have been a hot investment across the country as rents have risen amid a housing market that has priced out potential buyers. The fast-rising rents are leading to some backlash at the local level, however. In Santa Ana, the City Council recently approved a rent-control measure, the first city in Orange County to do so.
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[OCBJ] — Holden Walter-Warner