Smart investor buys prime Santa Ana property at a 62% discount

Picture courtesy of the L.A. Times

“Los Angeles real estate investor Highridge Partners bought a Santa Ana office building Wednesday as it launched a program to purchase $500 million worth of commercial properties in California,” according to the L.A. Times.

Highridge paid New York developer and landlord Tishman Speyer Properties $31 million for 3 MacArthur Place, an 11-story building completed in 1991 in the master-planned MacArthur Place development. Tishman Speyer paid $83 million for the building near the top of the real estate peak in 2007.

 Will Highridge, which is owned by John Long, buy more Santa Ana properties?  Might they be interested in the land that developer Mike Harrah was going to use for the One Broadway Plaza office tower?  Most experts don’t think that tower will ever be built.

This reminds me of what happened when Harrah bought up a lot of downtown property for cheap from Japanese investors who got burned. 

CityPlace developer Robert Bisno also bought up a lot of land in town but he recently filed bankruptcy.

Smart investors always capitalize during hard times…