Do You Really Get a Better Deal Outside of California?

Tim Lee is the VP of corporate development and legal affairs at Olive Hill Group.

Office investors are heading en masse to Seattle, Denver and Phoenix looking for yield, but the exodus of capital out of the state has driven up prices and compressed cap rates in those markets. Olive Hill Group, an active Los Angeles-based investor, says that they are seeing the same competition and bidding wars in those markets. The firm is specifically seeing strong competition in Seattle, and says that other investors looking in the market should expect competition similar to what we are seeing in Los Angeles.

“We are continuing to look outside of L.A. because a number of other markets have continued to heat up and show resilience,” Tim Lee, VP of corporate development and legal affairs at Olive Hill Group, tells GlobeSt.com. “These other markets, however, are not any less competitive than L.A. We were looking at some deals in Seattle, and we were seeing dozens of bids on the properties that we bid on. There is an idea that if you go to these other markets, the deals are less competitive. We haven’t found that at all. They are just as competitive as in L.A.”