The new executive managing director at Voit Real Estate Services is joining the Newport Beach-based company just as its core brokerage operations are starting to see some strong leasing momentum locally.
Bob Osbrink, formerly an executive at Santa Ana-based Grubb & Ellis Co. as well as at Irvine’s Sperry Van Ness, recently joined Voit to oversee the company’s 10-office brokerage operations.
Osbrink is one of several new executives at the company. Other recent additions include Cary Calkin, who will be running Voit’s asset services group. Voit also has brought in new managing directors in Sacramento and Las Vegas.
“I manage the managers,” is how Osbrink describes his role at Voit, a similar position to those he held at Grubb & Ellis and Sperry Van Ness.
Osbrink served as president of the transaction services group for Grubb & Ellis. He helped run the company’s brokerage operations out of Newport Beach when Grubb & Ellis was based in Chicago.
That was before its 2007 acquisition by Santa Ana-based real estate investor NNN Realty Advisors Inc., which kept the Grubb name and moved its headquarters here.
Osbrink more recently was president of several Southern California, Arizona and Oregon offices of Sperry Van Ness.
In the past year, he worked with high-profile residential broker John McMonigle (who last week filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection) to set up a commercial real estate division for his company.
Osbrink is joining Voit at a time when the brokerage is reporting encouraging activity levels in Orange County.
The county’s industrial market now has posted positive net absorption in each of the past four quarters, including adding nearly 800,000 square feet in the first quarter.
The local office market, meanwhile, saw almost 380,000 square feet of positive net absorption last quarter.
It’s been awhile since the county last saw consistent positive absorption for both the industrial and office markets, Osbrink said.
“I’m getting on a train that’s already moving,” he said.
One of Osbrink’s first tasks at Voit is finding a replacement for Kurt Strasmann to head up brokerage operations here.
Strasmann left Voit last month to head up industrial brokerage operations in Southern California for CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.
“It’s a great opportunity for someone,” said Osbrink of the open position. “They’ll be my right-hand man.”
IHP Investment
IHP Capital Partners, an Irvine-based housing investor, has entered into a partnership with Williams Homes Inc. in Santa Clarita to help fund the builder’s development and construction operations.
Terms of the venture weren’t announced. In the past 18 months, Williams Homes has bought more than 500 lots throughout Southern California.
It earned $17 million last year with the sale of 51 homes and expects to earn about $27 million this year, according to data from Builder magazine.
Other builders that IHP has made investments in of late include Aliso Viejo’s New Home Co. IHP also partnered with the California State Teachers Retirement System on a big real estate fund.
Apartment Deal
Laguna Niguel-based real estate investor Raintree Partners has picked up a 270-unit complex in Burbank.
Raintree paid $43.2 million, or about $160,000 per apartment, for the 1200 Riverside Apartments, a six building complex located a few blocks from the Ventura (101) Freeway.
The complex is nearly full and got a recent $8.4 million renovation, according to Raintree Chief Executive Jeff Allen.
The acquisition brings Raintree’s holdings in California to 11 apartment complexes, with more than 1,800 apartments.
Tennessee Buy
Newport Beach’s AC Self Storage Solutions LLC, a recent offshoot of real estate services and asset management firm Axxcess Capital LLC, has announced its first acquisition.
The company bought Rivergate Self Storage and Truck Rentals, a self-storage facility in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
The facility has 452 self-storage units, 17 parking spaces for RVs and boats, and about 62,000 of net rentable square feet. It’s about 80% occupied.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
Rivergate will be managed by Westport Properties Inc., a national self-storage operator-manager of approximately 40 facilities that’s also based in Newport Beach.
AC Self Storage officials said they’ll be looking to buy up to $1 billion worth ofTself-storage properties over the next few years.
