IRVINE, CA-As GlobeSt.com reported last week, local developer Brandywine Homes is planning its first multifamily development—the first of four apartment complexes it plans to build in the coming year. GlobeSt.com spoke with Brandywine's VP David Barisic about why the firm decided to move into the multifamily sector, its plans for future multifamily development and how the move will impact Brandywine's single-family development business.
“The move into multifamily development is not something that we recently decided,” Barisic tells GlobeSt.com. “This has been a goal of ours for the past several years, but we have been busy in the for-sale market and had to get geared up for it. It's a natural extension to what we do already—it's just a different market.”
Barisic explains that the firm's purpose is providing more-affordable housing to a population who is priced out of the market for buying one of Brandywine's homes. “We're just trying to expand our client base.”
Brandywine's first multifamily development of 25 units breaks ground in January in Garden Grove, CA. Also in-the-works is a 34-unit Garden Grove property set to close in February, a 22-unit property in Buena Park, CA, that should close in January, and a 35-unit development in Vista, CA, for which the company currently owns the property. The Vista project is in the entitlement process and should be fully approved by June.
Barisic says the addition of a multifamily component shouldn't impact the firm's single-family development at all. “In addition to expanding the portfolio of what we do by building multifamily, we're also expanding our home building.” The firm is on pace to double its production of for-sale housing in the coming year.
To gain an edge, Brandywine specifically targets markets that are underserved with newer housing stock, either for-sale or for-rent—namely, infill areas rather than master-planned communities. “If someone is looking for an apartment in an underserved market that wasn't built 40 years ago, we'll be the only game in town,” says Barisic. “We're not looking at Irvine or South Orange County, but older areas of Orange and San Diego counties.”
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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.
