Looking for a Palms multifamily broker? Michael Sterman, Senior Managing Director Investments at Marcus & Millichap and founder of the Sterman Multifamily Group, has closed $1.46B across 259 Los Angeles apartment building transactions over 14 years — including 15 in Palms alone. If you own an apartment building in Palms and are weighing a sale, this is the team that prices it against Palms's real buyer pool and rules — not a generic LA average.
Palms is dense, walkable, and demographically attractive. Proximity to Sony Pictures, Culver City's tech employers, and the Expo Line keeps tenant demand structurally high. The submarket's pre-1978 inventory is among the most-demanded in the LA City RSO universe. Most Palms multifamily was built between 1950 and 1975. That means the overwhelming majority of the submarket falls under LA City RSO — and under the new July 2026 formula, the allowable rent increase ceiling drops to 4%. Buyer pool is deep. Institutional value-add capital has treated Palms as a top-tier LA City target for a decade. Family offices and 1031 exchangers are consistently active. The Westside-adjacent location keeps a high floor under pricing even when the broader RSO environment tightens.
Price per unit runs $325,000 to $450,000 as of Q1 2026 — higher than central LA submarkets like Koreatown and Hollywood, lower than the Westside premium of Santa Monica and West LA. That spread is Palms's pricing signature: Westside-adjacent, LA City-exposed.
Value in Palms turns on vintage, rent-control status, your in-place rents versus market, and which buyer pool fits your building — not a single neighborhood average. Michael underwrites your specific Palms building the way a real buyer will, then tells you what it should bring and how to get there. No obligation.
Request a Free Palms Building Evaluation →Institutional value-add is most aggressive on stabilized pre-1978 inventory where renovation upside is visible. These buyers pay close to asking when the story is clean and cap ex is manageable.
Local Westside family offices acquire Palms off-market with frequency. Several multi-generational families have built long-term positions in the submarket.
1031 exchangers from across LA and from out-of-state treat Palms as a reliable reinvestment. Westside-adjacent quality at a price the exchange can defensibly underwrite.
A sample of Palms apartment buildings Michael Sterman has closed. Each links to the full deal record.
Fast: clean LA City RSO registration, documented rent history, no unpermitted units, seismic retrofit complete, operating statements that reconcile to tax returns, clean estoppels. Slow: RSO registration gaps (common), unpermitted units (Palms has a meaningful share of these), deferred capital that inspectors will catch, or ambiguous tenant occupancy status on long-tenured units. The difference between fast and slow in Palms is often 3-6% of sale price. On a $6M building, that's $180,000 to $360,000. Preparation cost is a fraction of that.
Michael Sterman has spent 14 years specializing exclusively in Los Angeles multifamily, closing 259 transactions worth $1.46B. He knows how Palms buildings are valued, who buys them, and what it takes to get a clean deal closed here. CA DRE License #01911703.
Michael sells across all of Los Angeles — see the citywide multifamily broker overview for the full closed record and median price per unit in every submarket, or read how much your LA apartment building is worth for how a Palms building actually gets valued.
Thinking about selling? Get a no-obligation evaluation on your building.
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