Carmel Partners & Affiliates Make Massive Apartment Portfolio Acquisition in Daly City Valued over $1.3B
Carmel Partners & Affiliates Make Massive Apartment Portfolio Acquisition in Daly City Valued over $1.3B
February 1, 2023
San Francisco-based Gerson Bakar & Associates continued this week with a disposition of another one of its prized assets. The company has sold off its last Bay Area property, the Westlake Village Apartments, a 47-acre, nearly 3,000-unit apartment community in Daly City, to an entity affiliated with San Francisco-based Carmel Partners. The total value of the acquisition comes to around $1.3 billion, and it involved a complex set of financial transactions that includes cash, equity, assumption of existing loans and procurement of new ones. This is just another in a series of dispositions the company and the Texas-based Bass family associated with it have made in the last 12 months across the West Coast, where they owned thousands of units.
Gerson Bakar made waves last year when the company in late September closed on the sale of 759-unit Oak Creek Apartments in Palo Alto to Stanford University. The entities went to great lengths to obscure the acquisition price and even avoided paying transfer tax on the sale. In a similarly complex fashion, the sale of the Daly City property included $675.2 million in cash, which was calculated from the transfer tax document, an assumption of three existing loans currently held by Fannie Mae totaling $249.8 million, and a new loan originated by Wells Fargo for $383.5 million, according to public documents reviewed by The Registry. These figures come to around $1.3 billion, equating to a total value of roughly $433,333 per unit.
Carmel Partners acquired most of the property through its Carmel Partners Investment Fund VIII, L.P., which raised over $1.5 billion in late 2022, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from last October. A portion of the fund is comprised of Middle Eastern money, which was raised by an entity in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, according to the SEC filing.
A source with knowledge of the offering details stated that multiple offers were received on the Daly City property sale.
Westlake Village Apartments is an apartment community that sits across a wide swath of land in Daly City next to Lake Merced Golf Club. The property is comprised of almost 3,000 apartment homes that also include cottages and townhomes, according to Gerson Bakar’s website. The community offers amenities such as 24-hour courtesy patrol, guest apartments, walking distance to shopping, laundry facilities and public transportation. According to the property’s website on apartments.com, the units range in size from studios to three bedrooms and rent from $1,895 to $4,495.
Around the same time the Palo Alto property was sold to Stanford in September, Gerson Bakar also disposed of the 437-unit Crystal Springs Terrace in San Bruno. Prometheus Real Estate Group bought the property for $188.5 million, or roughly $431,350 per unit, according to public documents and previous reporting by The Registry.
In October, Gerson Bakar also sold two properties in Folsom to Prime Residential. The company bought The Falls at Willow Creek for $148.6 million, or approximately $348,826 per unit, and The Legends at Willow Creek for $61.4 million, or approximately $295,192 per unit, according to sale records.
In the greater Seattle market, Pacific Urban picked up three of Gerson Bekar’s properties in October of last year. 266-unit Madison Sammamish Apartment Homes was sold for $114.2 million, or $429,323 per unit; 180-unit Gates of Redmond was sold for $71.3 million, about $396,111 per unit; and the 192-unit Olde Redmond Place apartment property went in a $79 million deal, or roughly $411,458 per unit.
This leaves the company with three remaining properties in Southern California: St. Moritz Apartments in Aliso Viejo, Park Newport in Newport Beach and Barcelona Resort Apartments in Aliso Viejo. According to a source tracking California apartment sales, these properties are also on the market.
