Mountain View Manor, a 200-unit apartment building in Sylmar, has sold for $39.5 million.
Shaya Braverman, co-founder and executive vice president of Beverly Hills-based Partners CRE, marketed the property on behalf of the seller, Positive Investments. Braverman, and his partner, Dario Svidler, represented the buyer, Golden Bee Properties.
Positive Investments had purchased the property in 2020 for $29.4 million.
“This latest acquisition underscores the continued demand for high-quality workforce housing, especially in a supply-constrained market,” Braverman said in a statement. “Investors recognize the strength of the opportunity for this asset class, and we are seeing a great deal of activity in this sector. We are pleased to have represented both the buyer and the seller (for the second time) in this successful sale.”
The property, at 12960 Dronfield Ave., spans 178,000 square feet and includes six apartment buildings, two common areas, and two large pools. Built in 1964, the building was renovated in 1999 under the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, which has helped meet the demands for affordable housing.
“After Shaya Braverman and his team represented us in the off-market acquisition of the 200-unit Mountain View Manor Apartments in November 2020, we refinanced with long-term fixed rate debt in the 3% range and addressed the deferred maintenance at the property,” said Positive Investments’ Srinivas Yalamanchili in a statement. “After we completed our work, Shaya and his team marketed the property and found the ideal buyer qualified in affordable housing who also was able to navigate assuming our agency loan with an institutional preferred equity partner, making their leverage and blended rate favorable to today’s rising interest rate environment. We were able to complete our business plan early and exit the property in under two and a half years.”
David Berneman, chief executive officer of Golden Bee Properties, said the acquisition fit with the company’s new affordable and workforce housing fund.
“It has become our seventh and final property in the fund,” he said. “Throughout the lengthy escrow period, Shaya and the seller worked closely with us, assisting with a difficult loan assumption along with other hurdles. Working with Shaya, Dario and the seller made the process easy.”
Multifamily activity has been robust in Sylmar in recent months. Husband-and-wife team development team Janet and Akhilesh Jha are looking to bring 45 residential units to 13916 W. Polk St. Sylmar is also the site of a proposed storage facility by Trojan Storage that would include 27 apartment units at 13260 W. Maclay St.
Also planned for Sylmar: 132 apartments and 1,337 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and 143 parking spaces that could go up at 14971 Foothill Blvd. Daniel Wishard is developing the project, which will be designed by Archeon Group.