Owens Financial Mines Buried Treasures
A California mortgage investor is digging for gold at Treasures on the Bay.
Owens Realty Mortgage is poised to sell 329 units at the Treasures on the Bay property in North Bay Village for $82M. According to info filed with the SEC, Owens has 169 condos and 160 apartment units at the bayside property under contract to sell to an unnamed party for nearly $250k/door. Owens CEO Bryan Draper says the loan portfolio (named TOTB Miami) “represent a substantial portion of our portfolio and will produce considerable gains and cash if and when a closing occurs.”
Owens entered the Miami multifamily market in 2011, during the depths of the Great Recession, when it picked up Treasures on the Bay from Titan Capital. Titan itself obtained the unsold properties at both Treasures on the Bay I and II in auction after the original developer was foreclosed upon, according to the South Florida Business Journal. The original loan was worth $66.5M. According to Owens' website, it had a $30M first mortgage loan on the property. "We recently completed substantial improvements to this property, further enhancing the Company's book value and expect this sale will unlock significant embedded equity and provide cash for continued expansion of our lending operations and reduce our overall levels of debt,” Bryan states in SEC docs.
