Maybe home auctions are a better sales tool than I first thought.
In a recent story on the housing market, I mentioned that Irvine-based Sares-Regis Group was readying to auction off 34 condominiums in Aliso Viejo, part of its Canyon Villas development.
The minimum bidding for the homes, recently converted from apartments, started at $295,000. That was 38% below the homes’ last asking price. Another sign of trouble in the housing market, perhaps?
Perhaps not. The result of the auction: 30 of the homes were sold for a total of $12 million, according to a spokesperson for Beverly Hills-based Kennedy Wilson Auction Group, which handled the event. The other four condos had been reserved prior to the auction.
There wasn’t a lack
of demand, either. About 1,600 people had ex-pressed interest in the auction, and 700 attended it. Of those who attended, about 300 bid on homes, which sold at an average of $400,000 each.
The condos formerly were part of Innsbruck Resort Apartment Homes, a 344-apartment complex. Sares-Regis bought them last year for a reported $96 million, or about $279,000 each, with an eye on converting the apartments to condos.
Sares-Regis was pleased with the results, but said it currently has no plans to auction off other condos.
Makar Makeover
Newport Beach-based real estate investment bank Buchanan Street Partners said it’s arranged a $31 million, 3-year loan for Makar Properties LLC.
The loan funded the acquisition and renovation of Wyndham Orange County, a 238-room, upscale hotel in Costa Mesa near South Coast Plaza.
Newport Beach-based Makar Properties, owned by Paul Makarechian, bought the Wyndham in March for a reported $42 million, adding another hotel to a portfolio that includes the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort & Spa in Dana Point.
The deal marks the third time that Makar Properties and Buchanan Street have worked together.
Makar Properties plans to host an open house on Nov. 2 to show off some of the upgrades and redesigns it’s making to the hotel, which was built in 1984.
One upgrade still under wraps: plans to add up to 120 condos to the six-story hotel, and reducing the number of rooms to 200. Changes likely wouldn’t be made for several years.
Condo conversion plans aren’t expected to be submitted to Costa Mesa city officials until next year.
Meanwhile, plans are further along for other high-rises in the works for Costa Mesa. Five of eight proposed high-rise condo towers, including those by Fifield Co. and J.K. Sakioka Co., recently received the OK from the Federal Aviation Administration (because of their proximity to John Wayne Airport). The other three should get approval soon.
You can add Kaliber Group Inc. to the list of developers calling Orange County home.
The Fullerton-based company started earlier this year, and just made its first big deal, in the eastern part of the Inland Empire.
Kaliber Group joined in a venture with Amstar Group, a Denver-based private equity fund, to develop office and industrial buildings on 54 acres in Riverside County. It’s tentatively being called Alessandro Commerce Centre and could offer up to 750,000 square feet of space.
The project’s value: $100 million. The site is off of Interstate 215 and Alessandro Boulevard, near a 1,200-acre commercial development by LNR Property Corp.
Kaliber Group is set to break ground within two years, after getting approvals, President Craig Reed said. He has worked on more than 3 million square feet of commercial development, at Disney Development Co., Lowe Enterprises Inc., Sares-Regis, and, most recently, Buchanan Street.
Similar development deals are likely for Kaliber Group, Reed said. These kinds of projects are most likely to get the returns his investment partners are looking for,in the mid to high teens, he said.
Staying Put
Santa Ana-based GeoLogistics Corp. is staying put.
The logistics and shipping company, which was acquired by Kuwait’s PWC Logistics for $454 million last year after pulling an initial public offering, renewed a lease for its headquarters.
The company has 34,074 square feet at 1251 E. Dyer Road. The building is part of Santa Ana’s Orange County Business Center, owned by PS Business Parks.
The new lease is for three years. Tom Taylor and Gary McArdell of Grubb & Ellis Co.’s Newport Beach office represented GeoLogistics.
The company moved its headquarters from Golden, Colo., to Santa Ana in 2000.
