WS Communities has landed a nearly $50 million loan for an apartment building in Brentwood after losing half its portfolio last year.
The Santa Monica-based development firm led by Neil Shekhter secured a $49.5 million floating-rate senior bridge loan to refinance Luxe Villas, a 60-unit complex at 11640 Mayfield Avenue, the Commercial Observer reported.
The lender was New York-based Ready Capital.
Bryan Gortikov’s Gortikov Capital, based in Santa Monica, announced and arranged the financing on behalf of the borrower, but didn’t disclose the names of the lender and landlord.
The six-story apartment building, built in 2005, was renovated last year. It has a fitness center, clubhouse, central courtyard and a rooftop lounge. Rents range from $2,195 for a studio to $6,875 for a two-bedroom apartment, according to Apartments.com.
Last month, WS Communities hired JLL to market a portfolio of 11 buildings in Santa Monica containing 399 apartments for an undisclosed price, The Real Deal reported.
The apartments represent a third of Shekhter’s current portfolio, which now stands at about 1,100 units, after he surrendered 28 properties with more than 870 units to lenders following $1.1 billion in loan defaults.
Before it hit financial headwinds, WS Communities owned 2,400 apartments across Los Angeles County in 2020.
Neil Shekhter once held some of the most coveted land in the nation.
He had apartments in Santa Monica and Beverly Grove, where one-bedroom units now average nearly $4,000 a month. And he owned land in Santa Monica that Tishman Speyer, the New York investment giant that counts Rockefeller Center among its holdings, paid more than $18 million an acre to buy.
Now, most of what he had is gone — half his portfolio gone up in smoke.
Shekhter, 60, who emigrated from the former Soviet Union when he was 17 and started his career as a taxi driver, spent the last three decades assembling a portfolio of more than 2,400 apartments across L.A. County through his firm WS Communities and an affiliate of NMS Properties.
But Shekhter isn’t the only multifamily investor in the state to struggle with higher interest rates. Last year, San Francisco-based Veritas Investments lost control of 76 apartment buildings in San Francisco after defaulting on nearly $1 billion in loans.
— Dana Bartholomew
Read more
- Neil Shekhter’s WS Communities looks to sell a third of its LA apartments
- Shekhter’s WS Communities loses half its portfolio to lenders after $1.1B in defaults
- After $1B default, Veritas’ CEO and founder Yat-Pang Au plans a comeback
The post WS Communities lands $50M refi for Brentwood apartment complex appeared first on The Real Deal.
Powered by WPeMatico