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Interwest Capital Corp. looked far and wide - and among young and old - for commercial property investment opportunities during what turned out to be a busy 2013 for the La Jolla-based company.
It finished the year by closing on the first portion of what would be a $150 million investment in a Las Vegas portfolio of eight senior housing communities. That came not long after it made a $33.8 million deal to acquire a 904-bed student housing complex in College Station, Texas, serving Texas A&M University.
The transactions were calculated bets on two growing demographic segments. More importantly, Interwest Chairman and CEO Alex Roudi said, is that both deals fit the company's longtime core strategy of seeking "value-add" transactions, in which it acquires the debt on properties whose prior owners encountered problems paying off loans, leading to delinquencies and foreclosures.
By dealing with lenders and special servicers, Interwest and its investment partners are able to acquire assets at a cost much lower than developing or acquiring the same type of property at...