IRVINE, CA—MBK Rental Living has begun construction on Ocean Air Apartment Homes at Torrey Hills, a high-end collection of 100 for-lease townhomes and flats in San Diego. GlobeSt.com spoke with Rick Fletcher, VP of sales and marketing for MBK Homes, about the company's move into the rental-development market and why it makes sense for homebuilders to think outside the box.

GlobeSt.com: Why are you entering the multifamily market?

Fletcher: MBK Homes is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsui & Co. Diversification is a tradition of this company; it's part of its business culture. With this last recession and some of the financial implications that all builders had to face, Mitsui was looking for a way to hedge their business against the cyclical nature of the for-sale market. It has always been that way. So they looked at apartments. They started looking at the demand for apartments and the ability to get multifamily land parcels. There are two different angles: building ground-up apartments, where we use our expertise in land acquisition and construction, or the value-added multifamily model where we see functional obsolescence and deferred maintenance and utilize our expertise in construction to improve and renovate the property, get rents up and stabilize it.

Ocean Air is in the best housing submarket in San Diego. It's got wonderful westerly views and a unique exclusive community that, because of the townhome configuration, is more reminiscent of for-sale projects. Our project will have the fit, finish and quality configuration of for-sale properties, but it's available for rent. These are three-story townhomes with great views, and they all have attached garages, granite countertops, custom paint, tankless water heaters—this is not your typical Irvine Co. or Archstone property of massive stacked flats. It's not an institutional-type apartment development.

The Torrey Hills area cried out for this type of product. The residents are affluent, and they're choosing to lease. Maybe they just sold a home and are waiting for one to be built, or there may be some type of family transition, and they're looking for a place to stay. The school district is a huge draw. This is 100 unites in an exclusive community for people who want privacy—they don't want people above and below them. It's a high-quality product for more of a homeowner mindset.

The demand right now has met our expectations. We're not even opening the leasing office until October, but there are 500 people on the interest list. There are lots of prelease deposits and lots of people interested in this type of community.


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GlobeSt.com: What does this say about the single-family market?

Fletcher: There are some good land opportunities in the single-family market now. The public builders have been on a very aggressive land-buy program for the last 24 to 36 months. Land prices have escalated quite quickly, so builders are a little more cautious about what they're buying. Builders like MBK can be more competitive on entitled product and A+ locations, and we're seeing more land opportunities. Prices are stabilizing, but the demand is pretty good. It's a normal market—not a hyperinflationary market. It feels like things are stabilizing. Interest rates are still low, and new homes are still undersupplied in Southern California.

GlobeSt.com: Do you see townhome building as a trend?

Fletcher: It has more to do with this location than that townhomes are a trend. At Ocean Air, we're doing a townhome community, but we have another apartment community outside of Corona that's more traditional called Palisades. These are higher-density, 300 units, a more traditional development because that's what that market calls for. If it were an affluent location, the townhome model works really well. But in an area that's more urban, stacked flats and higher density is the play. In the Inland Empire, most of that multifamily competition is traditional apartments with amenities like a huge pool and clubhouse. We're looking at different land opportunities throughout Southern California and asking, “What's the play for this particular market?” We would look at four- or five-story elevator buildings in the right market. It's important to be flexible. There's a reason why most developers don't do townhomes, and that's because of the larger square footage and stairwells—they can't get the lease price per square foot up as much because the stairwells take up some room. But it fills a void within a local community like Torrey Hills, and it makes sense.

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Carrie Rossenfeld

Carrie Rossenfeld is a reporter for the San Diego and Orange County markets on GlobeSt.com and a contributor to Real Estate Forum. She was a trade-magazine and newsletter editor in New York City before moving to Southern California to become a freelance writer and editor for magazines, books and websites. Rossenfeld has written extensively on topics including commercial real estate, running a medical practice, intellectual-property licensing and giftware. She has edited books about profiting from real estate and has ghostwritten a book about starting a home-based business.