Financial Partners Buys Into Seattle Market With $93M Apartment Play

A Japanese investor has bought a 382-unit apartment complex south of Seattle for $92.7 million, $39 million more than what it traded for seven years ago.

An affiliate of Financial Partners Group, based in Tokyo, purchased the Driftwood Apartments at 1610 West James Place, in Kent, about 20 miles south of Seattle, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported. The seller was Seattle-based Goodman Real Estate.

The deal works out to $242,670 per unit.

Goodman bought the two-story complex in 2017 for $54.1 million, or $141,623 per unit. The firm then spruced up the apartments for an undisclosed cost.

“The investment plan has been achieved,” George Petrie, CEO of Goodman, told the Business Journal, explaining why the company chose to sell the Driftwood.

Brokers Ben Johnson and David Sorensen of Berkadia held the listing.

The Driftwood Apartments, built in 1978, includes 36 buildings on 5 acres, seven miles southeast of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Rents range from $1,450 for a 500-square-foot studio to $2,100 for a nearly 900-square-foot two-bedroom apartment, according to its website.

The typical asking rent in greater Seattle rose 0.1 percent in August to $2,070 from the previous month, but dropped 1.9 percent from a year earlier, according to Redfin.

Nationally, median rents rose 0.9 percent year over year, but rents fell in areas where apartment production had surged.

Seattle’s year-over-year decline in rents was less steep than in peer markets such as San Francisco (7.8 percent), Los Angeles (4.2 percent) and Portland (3 percent), according to the Business Journal.

Financial Partners Group, founded in 2001 by Hisanaga Tanimura, focuses on leasing, domestic and international real estate, mergers and acquisitions and aviation, according to its website. The firm owns the Hyatt Centric Waikiki Beach and the Queen Kapiolani hotels in Hawaii.

— Dana Bartholomew