AvalonBay Communities Grows its Real Estate Holdings in Mountain View

 Location. Location. Location.

Mountain View continues to attract the interest of big real estate companies and recent moves by some heavy-weights make the city's apartment rental scene begin to look a lot like a game of Monopoly.

AvalonBay Communities announced on Monday, Nov. 26 that it had entered into a joint-venture agreement with Equity Residential to purchase Archstone Apartments for approximately $6.5 billion from Lehman Brother's Holdings. AvalonBay acquired 40 percent of the assets and liabilities of Archstone, which includes 66 apartment communities nationwide among them the Archstone at Middlefield Road (formerly Oakwood Mountain View).

In Mountain View, AvalonBay already owned three large apartment complexes—Avalon at Creekside, Avalon Mountain View, and Avalon Towers on the Peninsula.

Archstone Apartments operates and manages, in addition to the property at Middlefield, Archstone Mountain View on El Camino Real near Sunnyvale.

This now brings AvalonBay's holdings in Mountain View to five. This compares to Prometheus Real Estate Group, which has seven—including their new Madera property, but excluding properties not yet constructed.

What do you think about the consolidation of the ownership rental apartment complexes in Mountain View? Does it mean better services for renters? Can a few large real estate companies compete better than dozens or so smaller ones?  Tell us in comments!

Editor's Note: This is a first in a series of articles on the rental market in Mountain View. Stay tuned for more. Also, if you have suggestions include them in the comments, email or call!

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