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Developers, Backers Buy Into Commercial Market
Beijing-based Anhang Insurance Group Co.'s bid to buy two of Orange County's premier resort properties- Montage Laguna Beach and The RitzCarlton, Laguna Niguel-as part of a larger national portfolio deal marks a new high-water mark in Chinese companies' recent investment push into the area's commercial real estate sector.
Chinese-based investors-along with local investment companies backed by money from China-have poured more than $1 billion into large existing OC properties and big development sites over the past 18 months.
That's more than five times what Chinabased investors spent annually on real estate deals here a few years ago, according to Business Journal data.
Nearly another $2 billion could be spent by many of the same companies to finance ground-up development sites across the county, including locations in Anaheim, Lake Forest and Irvine.
Notable recent deals include:
* Irvine-based homebuilder Landsea Holdings Corp.'s purchase late last year of the Portola Center South residential development site in Lake Forest, which will hold more than 550 singlefamily homes and townhomes. The buyer is the U.S. arm of China-based real estate company Landsea Group, and paid an estimated $178 million for the land.
* Great Far East Inc.'s mid-2015 buy of a portion of the Colton Plaza office campus next to John Wayne Airport for an estimated $35.2 million. The Irvine-based commercial real estate investor is backed by funding from China, and plans to turn the site into a mix of offices,...