ARCADIA, CA—Multifamily property values continue to grow in Arcadia. A local investor has purchased a 16-unit apartment complex in the Los Angeles submarket for $431,250 per unit, the highest per-unit price ever paid for a multifamily property in the area, GlobeSt.com has learned exclusively. The per-unit price amounts to a total of $6.9 million for the property. The name of the seller was not disclosed.

This is the first time that this particular property has traded hands since it was originally developed in 1989. The seller had not originally intended to sell the property, however, he decided to sell because of the current healthy market conditions and pricing. “We marketed this property extensively to ensure that we were able reach the right buyer,” Han Widjaja Chen, president of Growth Investment Group, an affiliate of KW Commercial, tells GlobeSt.com. “Our approach ensured we were able to obtain maximum exposure for the property by leveraging several marketing channels. Our efforts paid off, and within the first week we were able to secure a full priced offer. The seller chose to keep marketing the property to see what other offers we could obtain so we continued to execute our marketing strategy for the property until we obtained an offer from the right buyer who was motivated to close the deal quickly.” Chen represented the seller in the transaction.

The sales team received nearly 10 offers for the property, many of which were competitive all-cash offers from local private investors. “These investors are especially savvy and look for high quality properties in areas like Arcadia, which is known for having excellent high quality tenants and excellent demographics,” says Chen. “In the end, we went with this buyer who is backed by foreign money because they showed the greatest promise for getting the deal closed on time without any re-trade.” 

 The sales team was able to achieve such aggressive pricing not only because of the strength of the multifamily market, but because of the limited supply of quality multifamily product available in the Arcadia market. “There are not many properties of this caliber for sale in Arcadia,” says Chen. “This shortage of inventory in this class helps to bolster the price and helps to increase the value of similar properties in the area. This is a record price for Arcadia and we knew that in this market, we could obtain an aggressive price. Arcadia is one of the most sought after rental markets for investors in multifamily investment properties due to its excellent demographics, excellent school district, and steadily increasing property values primarily due to the influx of wealthy foreign buyers.”

There is a limited supply of housing options in the Arcadia, CA market, and as a result, we have not only seen an influx of investors penetrate the market, but developers have also been scooping up available land sites. Earlier this year, Brandywine Home purchased an .82-acre land plot in Arcadia with plans to develop 17 three-story for-sale townhomes. The project will bring for-sale housing options and opportunities to an area with extremely high demand for housing. The project broke ground in April 2015 and the houses will come to market in December 2015.