Burbank’s Skyview Terrace Apartments Trades in One of 2021’s Biggest Deals

A local family office has acquired the trophy multifamily community Skyview Terrace Apartments in Burbank for $15.5 million. The transaction is the largest apartment deal in the market in the last 11 months and it is the newest apartment building to trade hands in the last five years.

Skyview Terrace Apartments is a boutique 34,000-square-foot, 35-unit property with a mix of one- and two-bedroom apartment homes. It features one of the largest rooftop decks in the Burbank market. The property was built in 2008, and this deal marks the first time that it has traded hands.

The brokerage team representing the seller held a private cocktail reception for qualified investors, and an offer emerged from the event. While a local family office, the buyer was of institutional quality in their performance and offer.

This year, 18 multifamily transactions totaling $44 million have closed in Burbank. The activity illustrates the rapid rebound of the apartment market following the pandemic. According to research from Marcus & Millichap, the Los Angeles apartment market has already returned to pre-pandemic activity. Apartment leasing is at a 15-year high, illustrating the strong renter demand. Demand has been so healthy that vacancy has fallen to 4% and rents are up 3% for the year.

However, investment activity has not yet boomeranged back. Overall deal activity is down 25% for the first half of the year. The decrease in activity was most notable in the $1 million to $10 million-investment segment, which is largely made up of class-B and class-C properties. During this time, property values in the market increased 4% to $298,000 per unit; however, the median area cap rate remained at 4.4%.

That could be due to increased investment activity in neighboring markets, like Las Vegas and Phoenix. ABI Multifamily noted that Phoenix had recovered from the pandemic pause by the third quarter last year, when the firm was closing a record-setting worthy number of deals. This year, several developers have entered the Phoenix market, including multifamily developer ZOM Living—which plans to invest $500 million in the market and build more than 1,600 units in North Phoenix, Scottsdale and the Biltmore District—and Decron Properties—which has already spent $250 million on the combined 772 units in the last four months.