LOS ANGELES-AMLI Residential has bought a 522-unit apartment complex in Woodland Hills from Archstone for more than $100 million, a broker involved in the sale says.“It was one of the smoothest sales that I have ever worked on,” Brett Betzler of Irvine, CA-based brokerage Moran & Co., tells Globest.com.

“The buyer did everything they said they would do, paid cash, and completed the purchase in less than 30 days,” adds Betzler, who brokered the deal on behalf of Colorado-based Archstone with Moran & Co. president Mary Ann King.

The four-story, upscale development stands on about 7.4 acres at 21200 Kittridge St., in the posh Warner Center area of Woodland Hills. Amenities include a pool, spa, fitness center and jogging path.

Although Betzler admits that rents in the area are “well below their peak levels” of a year or two ago, he insists that Chicago-based AMLI's new investment has “outstanding long-term potential.”

“A series of new apartment developments has kept vacancy relatively high, but that will change in the next few years as the latest new developments are completed and absorbed,” he says. “At that point, Warner Center will see a precipitous decline in vacancy, which should result in better rent growth than in most other Los Angeles submarkets.”

The acquisition pushes the number of luxury apartments that AMLI owns or manages across the U.S. beyond the 19,000-mark. About 1,700 of those units are in Southern California.

AMLI is part of the Prime Property Fund, an institutional real estate fund managed by New York-based Morgan Stanley.