SHERMAN OAKS, CA—Mill Creek Residential has purchased AMLI on the Boulevard, a 105-unit apartment complex in Sherman Oaks, from AMLI Residential, GlobeSt.com reports exclusively. The purchase price for the sale was not disclosed, although, sources unrelated to the deal tell us that AMLI Residential purchased the property for $29 million in 2006, just to offer some context. The property was marketed as a value-add asset.

“The property is in a really great location and it is a really great value-add opportunity, so there were a lot of people that were interested in it,” Brett Betzler, a director at Moran & Co., tells GlobeSt.com. “We ended up doing 50 property tours with different investors and we got about 30 offers on the property.” Betzler represented the seller in the transaction along with Mary Ann King, president of Moran & Co.

The Moran & Co. team received interest from a broad range of value-add investors in the widely marketed transaction, including private and institutional capital and REITs. While Betzler didn't want to disclose details about the bidding process or terms of the sale, he did sale that it was very competitive and that investors competed on both price and terms.

Located at 4440 Sepulveda Blvd. in Sherman Oaks, the 105-unit building was originally built in 1989, and is in an area where the majority of the apartment assets are more than 25 years old. The remaining market is largely single-family homes that range in price from $1 million to $10 million. “There are a number of apartment buildings in the area, but they tend to be smaller buildings and older buildings,” says Betzler. “You have people who are buying multi-million homes in the neighborhood and usually there are people who would also like to rent, but to do that, you would pay pretty hefty rents.”

Betzler also couldn't disclose the buyer's plans for the property, however, the property was marketed as a value-add opportunity, due to what his team saw as untapped demand for quality rental product in the area. “There isn't a lot of upscale rental product,” says Betzler. “You don't see very many newer properties with 100 units or more trade hands very often because there just aren't very many of them.”

Well-located value-add multifamily properties have been more and more difficult to find in this competitive market. Interstate Equities Corp. recently purchased a 34-unit value-add property in Burbank, and said that it was a rare find. They purchased the property in an off-market transaction, but said that if it had come to market, there would have been a number of interested buyers because “there is no shortage of high net-worth capital or institutional capital chasing value-add deals.”