Apartment Site Commands Nearly $11M

IRVINE, CA-Wood Partners of Newport Beach has acquired a property that is entitled for 132 multifamily units on a site of slightly more than three acres on Kelvin Avenue. The buyer paid $10.5 million for the site, which it bought from Essex Kelvin Apartments of Palo Alto in a transaction brokered by Joe Leon of the Newport Beach office of Hendricks & Partners.The Kelvin site is just off Jamboree Road, north of the San Diego Freeway, close to a number of other multifamily, office and retail development. The deal is one of a number of multifamily transactions that have closed in Orange County lately, including the approximately $6-million sale of a 33-unit complex in Anaheim.In the Anaheim sale, Interstate Equities Corp. bought a complex at 2910 Ball Rd. from NNT Properties in a transaction brokered by Tom Nguyen of NAI Capital Pacific Rim, who represented both the buyer and the seller. The single-story property was built in 1986.The two multifamily deals typify an Orange County apartment market that strengthened in the latter part of 2005, according to a recent report by Hendricks & Partners. "With little competition from the area's prohibitive single-family market and abundant condo conversions, apartment operations strengthened markedly," the Hendricks report says.The report showed that Orange County rental rates grew at 6.7% for the 12 preceding months, the fastest rate in more than four years, with average rents exceeding $1,400. The widespread condo conversion activity, coupled with economic growth and an increasingly inaccessible housing market, are expected to "bolster Orange County's apartment market in the years ahead," the Hendricks report concludes.