Stratford and LLJ pay $178,000 a unit for an aging Escondido complex

Stratford Partners and LLJ have paid $33.6 million, roughly $178,000 a unit, for the 189-unit Pacifica Palms Apartments at 1861 East Washington Avenue in Escondido, a gated 20-building complex on eight acres that was completed more than 60 years ago about 2.5 miles from downtown, according to Institutional Property Advisors, the Marcus & Millichap division that brokered the sale. PropertyShark records name the seller as Pacifica Palms LLC, an entity run by David J. Snodgrass and Barbara Snodgrass.

San Diego multifamily vacancy ran 4.2 percent earlier this year with average effective rents of $2,832 a month, and deal flow improved 25 percent in the 12 months ending in March, according to Marcus & Millichap's most recent multifamily report. Escondido sits among the tighter, more affordable pockets of the county, where IPA expects limited vacancy to persist, and home prices there have climbed 19 percent since 2021, a widening rent-versus-own gap that broker Alexander Garcia Jr. argues will sustain low vacancy and push rents upward. Chris Zorbas, who represented the seller alongside Garcia, called the asset a rare chance to buy a large value-add property in a supply-constrained submarket.

Recent comps tracked by this publication show the spread: a Marcus & Millichap-brokered 98-unit Lincoln Park trade cleared at $208,000 a unit, and a Pico-Robertson sale reset that neighborhood's per-unit bar at $334,937. Escondido is not those markets; it is a 60-year-old asset in a more affordable inland submarket, and the discount is the point. At $178,000 a unit, the joint venture is underwriting a value-add plan against what the property earns today, with room for the capital work an aging complex requires—the repricing that has defined mid-sized multifamily, buyers accepting current cash flow and counting on the cost gap to keep units full through a renovation. If the rent-versus-own spread narrows, so does the vacancy math that justifies the repositioning. The next Escondido seller will be measuring offers against that price.