Stratford Partners JV Buys San Diego-Area Apartments for $34M

A joint venture between Stratford Partners and LLJ has acquired a 189-unit apartment complex in northern San Diego County. 

The joint venture put down $33.6 million for Pacifica Palms Apartments at 1861 East Washington Avenue in Escondido, according to Institutional Property Advisors (IPA), a division of Marcus & Millichap. The deal works out to about $178,000 per unit. 

An entity named Pacifica Palms LLC, run by David J. Snodgrass and Barbara Snodgrass, sold the property, records with PropertyShark show.

The gated Pacifica Palms includes 20 buildings across 8 acres on East Washington Avenue, about 2.5 miles from Downtown Escondido. The development was completed more than 60 years ago.

IPA’s Chris Zorbas and Alexander Garcia Jr. represented the seller and procured the buyer. Zorbas described the property as a rare chance to acquire a large value-add multifamily asset in a supply-constrained submarket.

“The Escondido submarket has seen limited availability of multifamily assets of this size,” Zorbas said in a statement.

Garcia pointed to the widening cost gap between renting and owning, as Escondido home prices have increased 19 percent since 2021, according to IPA.

“The disparity between monthly living expenses for renting versus owning should sustain low vacancy and place upward pressure on Escondido’s rental prices for the foreseeable future,” Garcia said.

San Diego’s multifamily market remains tight, with vacancy at 4.2 percent earlier this year, and average effective rents of $2,832 per month, according to Marcus & Millichap’s most recent multifamily report. Deal flow also improved by 25 percent during the 12 months ending in March. Escondido is among the tighter, more affordable submarkets, where limited vacancy is expected to persist.

Gregory Cornfield can be reached at gcornfield@commercialobserver.com.