The purchase marks the first California acquisition for the private REIT's parent Berkeley Advisors since 2004 and its first acquisition nationally since early 2008. Berkeley Capital principal Mike Snegg says the company plans to stabilize the building's occupancy and bring the rents back to market over the next 3 years.

"We have been tracking real estate values from Texas to California; it has been years since we have seen anything worth buying in California," Snegg says. "If history repeats itself, values will be at 2004 levels at some point in the future."

Heck says the company has nothing else under contact at this time but is negotiating on five other deals in California and Arizona where owners are in the exact same situation. "These are almost always off-market deals," Heck adds. "The margins are so thin that there's no room to pay hundreds of thousands in brokerage commissions."

Speaking of brokerage commissions, Heck says Berkeley Capital Trust also no longer uses third party brokerage firms to lease up its vacant spaces in any of its markets, instead preferring to hire its own employees who also act as property managers. They get a base salary plus a bonus for occupancy and a bonus for tenants paying on time, Heck says.

"We have achieved much better success," Heck says. "One year ago our occupancy portfolio-wide was 60% and now it is 80%."

By having in-house staff who can focus only on leasing a particular asset -- as opposed to a third-party broker focused on leasing multiple properties for multiple clients – and by focusing more on keeping the buildings full as opposed to maximizing the rental rate for each tenant, Heck says the company hopes to come out ahead in the end.

"We've been through several of these and it's not going to last forever," Heck says. "If you can get tenants in your building even at a low rate and keep them happy, eventually, when the rates start going back up, we will have had the tenant and built a loyalty."