OAKLAND — Two just-completed deals for apartment properties in Oakland point to a frail market for multifamily residential hubs in that municipality, as values continue to falter in the East Bay’s largest city.
One deal involves the purchase of The Amelia apartment complex at 411 29th St. in Oakland’s Pill Hill district at a discount to its prior value. A South Bay investor paid $21 million for the 83-unit Amelia apartments, documents filed on Dec. 2 with the Alameda County Recorder’s Office show.
Separately, ArtHaus Partners and Belay Investment Group teamed to foreclose on a loan in a streamlined fashion that enabled them to gain ownership of nine apartment complexes in Oakland’s Lake Merritt area, according to documents filed on Nov. 25 with the Recorder’s Office. The unpaid debt at the time of the foreclosure was $57 million.
Both deals suggest that the Oakland apartment market remains in rough shape.
In some cases, real estate investors are buying Oakland apartments at low prices.
In other instances, lenders or other buyers have foreclosed on the delinquent loans for apartments.
The Amelia apartment deal enabled Krishna Koganti and Seetaram Vemulapalli, both from Santa Clara County, to purchase the complex from a lender that had previously foreclosed on the multifamily property.
In October 2024, SREC Amelia Owner, which is located in the same Chicago office as Toronto-based Slate Asset Management, foreclosed on the loan that financed The Amelia apartments. The unpaid debt at the time was $23 million.
This means The Amelia was bought for 8.7% less than its debt in the 2024 foreclosure. The latest purchase price works out to roughly $253,000 a unit, which is on the low end of the per-unit prices for apartments in the East Bay this year.
In the case of the portfolio of the nine apartment complexes in Oakland near Lake Merritt, ArtHaus Partners and Belay Capital gained ownership of 268 units in Oakland by paying $30 million to buy the loan for the properties to enable the foreclosure.
The $30 million note purchase amount is 68% below, or one-third of, the combined assessed value of the nine apartment hubs as of January 2025, based on a calculation from the Alameda County Assessor’s Office.
The nine apartment properties are at 414 Grand Ave., 646 16th St., 378 Grand Ave., 350 Newton Ave., 425 E 18th St., 553 Sycamore St., 1428 Jackson St., 1146 McKinley Ave., and 414 E 15th St., according to ArtHaus Partners.
ArtHaus principal executive and founder Riaz Taplin believes he bought the apartment portfolio at a bargain-basement price.
“The combination of being in the early innings of a tech cycle and the Oakland market having bottomed out makes this the ideal time to invest,” Taplin said.
ArtHaus focuses on the creation and preservation of workplace housing for ordinary workers, and the company believes this portfolio acquisition dovetails with that strategy.
The company intends to use “thoughtful renovations and operational improvements” to burnish the exteriors and interiors of numerous apartments in the just-bought portfolio, according to Taplin.
“Near-term priorities include stabilizing the assets by renovating and leasing the currently vacant units,” ArtHaus stated.