BERKELEY — An East Bay apartment complex has been bought following a foreclosure that helped to shove the property’s value lower, fresh evidence of feeble values in the multifamily residential market.
Higby, an apartment building in Berkeley, has been bought for $32 million by an East Bay real estate investment firm, according to documents filed on Feb. 18 with the Alameda County Recorder’s Office.
Higby, a 98-unit, five-story Berkeley apartment building at 3015 San Pablo Avenue, seen in Nov. 2024. (Google Maps)
The 98-unit, five-story residential complex was built in 2015 and is located at 3015 San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, according to the Apartments.com website.
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Berkeley-based Read Investments, which owns a portfolio of commercial real estate properties on the West Coast, bought the apartment complex, the county public records show.
In August 2024, the residential building toppled into foreclosure and was seized by an affiliate controlled by the property’s lender, The Union Life Insurance Co., according to the Alameda County documents.
By multiple benchmarks, the Berkeley apartment building’s value — as is the case for a growing number of multifamily residential complexes in the East Bay — has plummeted over the last few years.
In 2019, the year of the transaction before the foreclosure, Higby was bought for $51.5 million.
In January 2024, the Higby apartment complex had a value of $55.5 million, according to an estimate from the Alameda County Assessor’s Office.
When lender Union Life Insurance Co. took ownership in August 2024 through a streamlined foreclosure process, the financial services firm placed a value of $36.2 million on Higby apartments.
This week’s $32 million purchase price represents a nosedive of 42% from the assessed value and 38% from the prior purchase amount.
Several transactions have emerged in recent months that hint at a widening slump in the apartment markets in Oakland, Emeryville — and now Berkeley.
Among the properties that fit the pattern of fading property values:
— A 206-unit, 24-story housing tower at 1700 Webster St. in downtown Oakland was taken back in August 2024 by its lender due to a delinquent $90-million loan.
— The Logan, a 204-unit apartment complex at Telegraph Avenue and 51st Street in Oakland, was taken by a real estate firm that first bought the property’s loan and then foreclosed on the financing vehicle in November 2024.
— In September 2024, Bayview, a 186-unit apartment complex in Emeryville, was seized by its lender CIM Group through a deed in lieu of foreclosure procedure.
— In January 2025, a downtown Oakland apartment complex at 1889 Harrison St. was bought for $61 million, 47% below its most recent assessed value.
Shifts in property values have an impact that goes well beyond the effects on owners of apartment, office and hotel properties, which are struggling to various degrees in the Bay Area.
Slumping values for commercial properties can undermine revenue for an array of public agencies.
If real estate values turn soft in a jurisdiction, that could crimp a crucial revenue stream for city, county and regional agencies, as well as school districts.
