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ESCONDIDO, CA-Alta Vista, a 102-unit apartment community, was purchased by San Diego-based Farfield Residential LLC for $22 million, or, for $215,686 per unit. The price set a record for Escondido and the north Interstate 15 and east Highway 78 corridors.

The sale, brokered by the West Coast office of Moran & Co., hit a record level, Moran experts say, because condo conversions removed more than 4,900 rental units from the I-15 Corridor, which stretches from Escondido in the north to Scripps Ranch in the south, over the past three years. In the Escondido submarket, nearly all of the apartment inventory was constructed before 1990; and Alta Vista, built in 2000, is one of the area's only newer luxury apartment options, which may explain why the complex was 95% occupied at the time of sale.

This submarket's low rental inventory was further exacerbated by the county's population growth of 6.1% since 2000 and the recent job increase of 3.17%, according to Portland, OR-based Sperling, which analyzes regional data. Once high-end commercial areas like Sorrento Valley and Del Mar Heights approached build-out, many employers were forced to relocate their companies and corporate campuses along the approximately 25 million sf of office and industrial space that resides along the I-15 Corridor.