MURRIETTA, CA—Strata Equity Group has acquired Waterstone at Murrieta, an institutional grade garden-style community here from a joint venture between Silverado Canyon Partners and The Wolff Company. Thomas Moran of Moran & Company's California office represented the seller in the transaction. The sale closed September 4.

“As an investor across multiple property types, we have a very clear strategy to identify assets in growing markets such as the Inland Empire. Waterstone at Murrieta provides us with the opportunity to continue and complete an already well-executed value-add strategy and reposition Waterstone to compete with newer multifamily product” says David Michan, president at Strata. “We've achieved success in this market firsthand with the performance of our existing portfolio of multifamily and single-family rental communities. We plan to replicate that success with Waterstone at Murrieta.”

Mike Jara, president of Silverado Canyon Partners added, “The sale of Waterstone at Murrieta marks the successful execution of the investment strategy we originally conceived with The Wolff Company. We completed a number of renovations and upgrades in response to the growth occurring in the market and we capitalized on those improvements. The continued stabilization of the Inland Empire motivated the decision to sell, but we believe there is room to achieve increased revenue over time, and Strata is just the right owner to make that happen.”

Waterstone at Murrieta is a garden-style apartment community that consists of 420 units arranged around a low-density campus. Well-located within the Murrieta submarket, the property provides residents with exceptional access to jobs, retail centers, and entertainment options. Although it was built in 1990, the property has benefited from several renovations that have modernized the asset keeping it competitive with newer rental communities.

Waterstone at Murrieta is the second value-add deal we've sold in the Inland Empire this year. In both instances, the deals garnered significant private and institutional attention, and we primarily attribute that to the abundance of value-add buyers in the market coupled with the economic recovery well underway,” explains Moran. “In fact, the Inland Empire is showing strong job growth at 3.9%, which nearly doubled from 25,000 in 2012 to 47,000 jobs in 2013.”