Even those rent figures could be conservative, he said, pointing out that developers building new apartments in Westwood and Santa Monica expect to get rents of $3,000 or more without the ocean views and beachfront location of the just-sold property.
An April 15 report by the Santa Monica Rent Control Board, analyzing rent increases at 910 units vacated in the city between Jan. 1 and March 31, showed that rents increased by 40% to a median of $775 on bachelor apartments, by 59% to a median of $1,000 on one-bedroom units, by 81% to a $1,397 median on two-bedroom apartments and by 91% to a median of $1,890 for apartments with three or more bedrooms.
The sale price of $178,571 per unit far exceeds the per-unit prices in many Los Angeles apartment markets but is well below prices paid for other premium properties. Emmett, for example, recently paid $30 million, or $270,000 per unit, for a 111-unit complex at 555 Barrington Ave. that Pelleg described as "one of the most luxurious properties in Brentwood."
The purchase is the latest of several high-profile acquisitions by Emmett, which owns and operates income properties on behalf of investors, including a large portfolio of Westside office buildings.
This year the firm paid about $87 million for the 21-story, 245,413-square-foot luxury office building at 100 Wilshire Blvd. in downtown Santa Monica. In February 1998 it acquired the 712-unit Barrington Plaza in West Los Angeles, one of the largest apartment complexes in Los Angeles County, for about $100 million.
