Property West Acquisition

Walden Residential, which owns and operates apartment communities nationwide, has completed the sale of Felicita Creek, a 136-unit multifamily community located in Escondido, CA. The property was purchased for $12.85 million by Mark Gosselin, president and CEO of Property West, a privately held real estate investment company based in San Diego. Built in 1987, Felicita Creek was acquired by Walden in 1997. "This sale is consistent with Walden's portfolio management strategy to sell assets that no longer meet the company's long-term investment criteria," said Ted Kerr, Walden's senior vice president and chief investment officer, who is responsible for property dispositions. "We build value by investing where we maintain significant market share, and our markets are primarily concentrated in the southern and southwestern United States." Once one of the nation's larger multifamily real estate investment trusts, Walden was acquired and privatized by Olympus Real Estate Partners in February 2000. The Walden portfolio provides a platform for the execution of multifamily strategies consistent with the buy-and-build strategy that Olympus deploys in other real estate sectors. Walden currently owns and manages 136 apartment communities, totaling nearly 40,000 units, from offices in Dallas, Austin, Houston, Jacksonville, Nashville, Phoenix, and Tampa.