IRVINE, CA-Berkeley Point Capital’s locally based team, led by director Darrin Stoval, has provided $37.8 million in financing for Dornin Investment Group to acquire seven multifamily properties in Southern California over the past year. All of the acquisitions were in the $5-million to $20-million range, on which Dornin focuses.
Dornin’s most recent acquisition was Country Club Apartments, a 79-unit multifamily community in San Bernardino, which the firm purchased from a group of investors who built the project in the 1980s as an estate-planning vehicle, Chris Dornin, president of Dornin Investment Group, tells GlobeSt.com. The deal was structured under the Fannie Mae DUS program as a $5.4-million, 10-year, fixed-rate execution.
“The acquisition of Country Club continues our strategy of buying mismanaged, value-add, distressed and/or opportunistic multifamily properties in Southern California,” said Dornin in a prepared statement. “The property is well located near CSUSB and the new Amazon distribution center and features well-designed condominium-style units. With some minor interior and exterior upgrades, new professional management and the continued expansion of the distribution and manufacturing sectors in the Inland Empire, we are excited about the long-term potential of this asset.”
Dornin tells GlobeSt.com that this was a challenging transaction to get financed because of the nature of the selling group and the historical information they had available. “Berkeley Point has financed almost every one of our deals since I started this company a year-and-a-half ago. They are the difference maker in getting the deals done and getting the yields we need.”
Prior to the Country Club transaction, Dornin had engaged Berkeley Point on a number of unique deals structured under the Fannie Mae DUS program as 10-year, fixed-rate mortgages, including $12,440,000 to acquire Royal Oaks Senior Apartments, a 122-unit, age-restricted community in San Marcos, CA; $6,937,000 to acquire the Sea Breeze Apartments, a 64-unit multifamily community in Lompoc, CA; $7,735,000 to acquire 720 S. Normandie Apartments and 709 S. Mariposa Apartments in Los Angeles, which were financed through one combined loan; and $5,360,000 to acquire Normandy and University Gardens in Riverside, CA, which were also structured as one transaction.
Dornin adds that concessions have pretty much flattened in the inland market for the firm’s properties, with occupancy in the mid-90% range. In the L.A. market, Dornin is seeing substantial rent increases, although he points out that most of the firm’s acquisitions in this market were in a distressed or neglected mode upon purchase and therefore were not indicative of what the market is seeing.
He also indicates that the firm is “extremely opportunistic” and is in a “heavy acquisition growth mode right now,” with other transactions in the works.
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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.
