Decron pumps cash from LA sales into $69M multifamily buy in Phoenix

Decron Properties cashed out of Los Angeles and into Phoenix. 

After selling two apartment complexes in Thousand Oaks, Decron has bought a 266-unit complex in Glendale, Arizona, for $69 million, the firm announced Wednesday. 

Decron used the proceeds from the Ventura County sales, which totaled $65.5 million plus loan assumptions worth $105.5 million, to buy the Phoenix-area property through a 1031 exchange, which allows real estate investors to defer capital gains taxes as long as certain federal tax rules are met and they invest gains in another property.

PB Bell, a Scottsdale-based developer, built the property, known as Hangar at Thunderbird, in 2023 and sold it to Decron, the company said in its announcement. 

The purchase of the property, located at 15301 North 57th Avenue, came out to about $260,000 per unit. 

In 2021 and 2022, while interest rates were low, firms were spending that amount on properties built in the 1980s. Tides Equities, a Los Angeles-based firm that pools investor money to buy multifamily, and CIM Group spent $250,000 per unit on Del Mar Terrace, a 1,012-unit complex built in 1985. 

The average price per unit for multifamily in Phoenix from December 2021 through January 2022 was $278,600, according to brokerage Matthews Real Estate Investment Services. 

Decron, run by David Nagel, has sold $345 million worth of assets across Los Angeles and Ventura counties over the last six months. 

Nagel has criticized the city of Los Angeles’ transfer taxes, known as Measure ULA, which have added a 4 percent tax on all commercial and residential sales of $5 million or more and a 5.5 percent tax on all sales of $10 million or more. 

Nagel, however, still lives in the L.A. market, though not within the confines of the city. In February, he purchased a spec mansion in Beverly Hills for $30.1 million — a roughly 25 percent discount to the mansion’s listing price in 2021.