Westwood's Average Per-Unit Prices Double

LOS ANGELES—Three multifamily properties operating as student housing have traded hands in Westwood for $727,000 per unit. The per-door price is more than double the median sales price in Q115 in the submarket. Trading hands between an unnamed private investor and three unnamed buyers, also private investors, the three properties have a total of 20 units and traded hands for $14.5 million.

“The future redevelopment of the properties really helped to attract the higher pricing. Three of the properties were zoned R-4, which will allow somebody to develop to a much higher density when they do plan to redevelop the property,” Mike Smith, a principal at Lee & Associates LA North/Ventura office, tells GlobeSt.com. “The properties were purchased by the neighbors; they were the logical buyers. We got the pricing that we were looking for on all three properties, but we didn't get a tremendous amount of offers. It was just that the neighbors needed to purchase these properties to protect their future development.” Smith represented the seller and the buyers in two of the transactions along with his colleague, principal and managing director Jim Fisher.

Located at 732-738 Levering Ave., 10954 Roebling Ave. and 10977 Roebling Ave., all three properties are located blocks from UCLA and were fully occupied at the time of the sale. “The north village is incredible. There are so many students that need housing, and this is the type of housing that students are looking for,” says Smith. “Often, there will be six to eight kids per three- to four-bedroom unit to help pay for the $4,500 to $5,000 monthly rents. That is how these building will be operated by the new owners as well.”

Although there wasn't steep competition for the properties, the sales team did receive multiple offers.; however, the high pricing did deter many of the buyers. “We did get multiple offers, but most of the offers were much low than our asking price. The higher pricing really limited the buyer pool,” says Smith. The properties were originally built in the 1930s and 1950s.

Properties in this submarket rarely trade hands, which is likely why the properties were able to attract such high price points. The last major multifamily news to come out of the submarket was Raintree Partners' acquisition of a five-property 327-unit multifamily property portfolio that included 153 units in Westwood Village. Raintree planned to invest an additional $3.7 million into property renovations.