Financing, Location Drive $53M Apartment Sale

GARDEN GROVE, CA-The 402-unit Crystal View Apartments complex has sold for $52.5 million in an deal that attracted strong investor interest, thanks to assumable financing and its location, according to broker Moran & Co. The buyer was MG Properties Group of San Diego.

Mike Murphy, a director in Chicago-based Moran & Co.’s Irvine office who represented the institutional seller along with Moran president Mary Ann King, tells GlobeSt.com: “Buyers were attracted by the higher yields generated by the property’s $27.1 million in assumable variable-rate tax-exempt bond financing, which had an interest rate that averaged less than 1.6% over the last six months.”

Murphy added that the financing, along with the opportunity to remove the existing rent restrictions after three years, significantly enhanced the value of the asset. He also observed that the property will benefit from outstanding long-term prospects for the neighborhood with the growth of the adjacent Anaheim Resort area, expansion of nearby medical complexes, and the eventual realization of the vision of Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle. “The area’s central location and great transportation access will play increasingly important roles in the location’s desirability as a residential address” he said.

King noted that this is Moran & Co.’s second major sale in the immediate market in the past 45 days. The other was the sale of the 884-unit Gateway Apartments, a mile away. Crystal View joins Gateway, Allure, and Windsor at Main Place as the fourth apartment property sold by Moran & Co. in the submarket. The property, at 12091 Bayport St., is an 11-building complex that was built in 1968 and consists of studios, one- and two-bedroom units ranging from 400 to 1,060 square feet.