In a rare bulk sale, an entity tied to a Hollywood investment fund paid $9.6 million for 104 units at The Windward Lakes Condominiums in Pompano Beach.
Windward, at 4001 W. McNab Road, has 276 total units. It opened in 1992 as apartments and later became condos.
An affiliate of Hon Capital LLC bought the complex from Massachusetts investor LR5A-JV Windward LLC for $92,308 a unit.
The seller had acquired the condos through foreclosure and rented them while waiting for the housing market to rebound, according to Franklin Street, a Tampa-based real estate firm that represented both parties in the transaction.
The 104 units — a mix of one, two and three bedrooms — range from about $975 to $1,410 a month. Franklin Street‘s Deme Mekras said the buyer intends to maintain the units as rentals while also renovating the complex to boost rents.
“They want to hold them in a rental program for the foreseeable future, but I don’t know if that’s two years or 10 years or somewhere in between,” Mekras said.
Peter Zalewski, head of the CondoVultures consulting firm, said he’d be surprised if the new owner held onto the units for longer than a year or two, given how strong demand is for low-end condos. Hon could double its money if it times a resale properly, Zalewski said.
“They’re perfectly positioned to tap into that marketplace,” he said.
Bulk-buying was common during the housing bust as investment funds scooped up thousands of condos at bargain prices. But the buying frenzy slowed in 2011 and there have been few bulk deals in recent years with home prices on the upswing.
In this case, the seller is not a traditional lender and wasn’t under pressure by regulators to dump the 104 units, Mekras said.
“They had the flexibility to wait for market conditions to improve,” he said.
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