Brookfield Becomes San Francisco's Largest Multifamily Landlord

Brookfield Properties has taken the crown of San Francisco’s largest multifamily landlord from Veritas.

At a public foreclosure auction held across the street from City Hall on Thursday, Brookfield was the winning, and only, bidder for two Veritas apartment portfolios.

Brookfield bid $386.25M for 62 San Francisco apartment buildings encompassing 1,743 units and $77.25M for a second portfolio encompassing 422 units in 14 buildings.

Ben Brown, Brookfield’s head of real estate for the Americas, declared in a statement that Brookfield’s successful acquisition of the Veritas portfolios represents a vote of confidence in San Francisco.

“While some have counted the city out, we have been investing for a long time and have seen San Francisco emerge from every down cycle stronger than before,” Brown said, adding that the acquisition was “a unique opportunity to own one of the only multifamily portfolios of scale in San Francisco offered in the last decade.”

Last month, NYC-based Brookfield Properties acquired $915M of debt in two mortgages backed by the portfolios encompassing all 76 of the Veritas-owned apartment buildings, which was a substantial portion of Veritas’ multifamily portfolio in San Francisco.

The debt was purchased for an undisclosed price and consisted of two loans, a $675M loan backed by 62 buildings and a $130M loan backed by 14 buildings.

Veritas, at the time the owner of 7,500 apartment units in California, defaulted on the larger loan in November of 2022, and on the smaller loan in Q2 2023. The total debt grew to $915M by the middle of December.

Brookfield was the sole bidder at last week’s public auction. According to reports, the auction unfolded quickly with the auctioneer refusing to identify himself to reporters on the scene.

When Brookfield and San Francisco-based Ballast Investments partnered to acquire the debt, there was an expectation that as the new lender to Veritas, Brookfield would be in a position to foreclose on the apartment portfolios backing the loans.

Brookfield partnered with Ballast to complete Ballast’s purchase of delinquent loans backed by the Veritas apartments at an auction conducted by Eastdil Secured on behalf of lenders who foreclosed on the debt.

Last May, Eastdil began marketing delinquent loans divided into two Veritas portfolios backed by 95 apartment buildings encompassing 2,452 and 45 ground-floor storefronts, describing them as “trophy buildings in the city’s most coveted neighborhoods.”