COSTA MESA, CA-CT Realty Investors and WLCM have sold three apartment communities located within a mile of each other here for $13.6 million. The three communities were sold to two local private parties.

The three communities are Beachwood Apartments, an 18-unit community at 324 Victoria St.; College Avenue Apartments, a 16-unit community at 2290 College Ave.; and Orange Apartments, a 21-unit community at 2159 Orange Ave. CT Realty had acquired the three communities in a larger multifamily coastal aggregation strategy in May of 2011 and renovated the assets to enhance the value of the portfolio.

Grant Hahn of Morgan-Skenderian Investment Real Estate Group in Newport Beach represented the buyers in the purchase of Beachwood Apartments and the College Avenue Apartments. Peter Hauser and Steven Brombal with Hendricks-Berkadia's Newport Beach office represented both parties in the sale of the Orange Apartments.

The joint venture had acquired the communities in three separate transactions from local private parties and a trustee representing one of the sellers. During early stages of ownership of the communities, CT Realty invested $7,500 per unit in capital improvements involving exterior and interior renovations in all units.

According to James “Watty” Watson, CEO of CT Realty, the firm entered into the joint venture with WLCM with the goal of aggregating clusters of smaller apartment projects in coastal communities. The partners have assembled several apartment properties in the Costa Mesa submarket throughout the past two years and have similarly pursued other submarkets up and down the coast.

“The Costa Mesa properties were a strategic opportunity to acquire multifamily communities at a pricing well below replacement cost,” said Chris Lee, a principal with WLCM, in a prepared statement. “The partnership's hands-on expertise created substantial value through a detailed capital-improvement plan that allowed for significant rental-rate increases.”

Rental housing continues to strengthen “and this can be seen in the record level of multifamily housing starts,” added Ray Polverini, SVP for CT Realty, in the statement. “This robust market activity continues to benefit even strong coastal markets like Costa Mesa.”

As GlobeSt.com reported earlier this month, CT Realty has acquired an infill redevelopment site in City of Industry, CA, consisting of 7.7 acres, with plans to build a 168,000-square-foot class-A warehouse/distribution building.