Napa’s Marina Vista Apartments sell for $10M in hot market

A 42-unit Napa riverfront apartment complex sold for $10.4 million, after being on the market for a short time amid active investor interest for the few available multifamily properties.

Marina Vista Apartments at 1095 Marina Drive on the west bank of the Napa River in the Imola bend area sold on March 7 at a price equivalent to nearly $248,000 a unit, according to Vince Schwab, the Marcus & Millichap agent who represented the seller.

The buyer was Leonard Woolard of Burlingame, completing a Section 1031 real estate exchange. Burlingame-based brokers Greg Cohen and Rod Carp represented him.

'The seller came in three years ago and upgraded the tenant profile and buildings and grounds,' Schwab said. 'They really cleaned the place up and made it a nice place to live.'

Rents for the two-bedroom, two-bathroom, two-story townhouses are $1,700–$2,000 a month, depending on whether they've been renovated.

The Marina Vista sale-price gross rent multiplier — how many times annual rents was the sale price — was 13.0. It's a way to compare income-generating real estate.

Built in 1978, the 3.3-acre property was on the market for about two months and garnered a half-dozen offers over that time. Because this complex is too small for most investment funds to be interested, the suitors were primarily individuals and small-scale investment syndicators, Schwab said.

The Napa Valley multifamily investment market has big potential but few options, he said.

'Very few properties are available for sale,' he said. 'There have been a lot of hospitality projects but almost no new housing has been built.'

And only a few percent of the units in the market are vacant. But after rents in Napa Valley soared because of the shortage, they are starting to level off, Schwab said.