West Ocean Condos to be Auctioned

LONG BEACH, CA—A lopsided buyer’s market has left several condominiums at one of Downtown Long Beach’s most prolific high-rise developments unsold, and now an auction is being held to sell off 39 upscale units with minimum bids starting as low as one-third of the original sales prices.

Citi Property Investors, the real estate investment center of Citi Alternative Investments, plans to hold a real estate auction for West Ocean Two, part of a two-tower $196 million, 246-unit luxury condominium development facing Downtown’s shoreline.

When the project was completed at the start of this year, project developer Intracorp acknowledged at the time that it had some sales cancellations because of the market downturn, but that 68 of the 132 units in Tower 1 on Ocean Boulevard had already been occupied and roughly 80% were sold. Roughly half of the units in Tower 2 had sold, Intracorp said in January. Intracorp executives couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, nor could executives at Citi.