Looking for a Van Nuys multifamily broker? Michael Sterman, Senior Managing Director Investments at Marcus & Millichap and founder of the Sterman Multifamily Group, has closed $1.38B across 248 Los Angeles apartment building transactions over 14 years — including 12 in Van Nuys alone. If you own an apartment building in Van Nuys and are weighing a sale, this is the team that prices it against Van Nuys's real buyer pool and rules — not a generic LA average.
Van Nuys is central San Fernando Valley — dense, aging, predominantly pre-1978, LA City RSO in most cases. The submarket has the scale to attract institutional interest but the age profile to invite value-add theses. The combination creates the bimodal pricing. Tenant demand is steady but less acute than on the Westside. Vacancy runs near the metro average. Rent growth is constrained by RSO on the dominant building cohort.
Price per unit runs $250,000 to $350,000. Days on market average 120 to 180 days. Blended submarket pricing obscures the real dynamic. Three buckets drive the spread:
Buyers are pricing the thesis, not just the building. A broker who doesn't distinguish between those three buckets is leaving money on the table — in both directions.
Value in Van Nuys 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 Van Nuys building the way a real buyer will, then tells you what it should bring and how to get there. No obligation.
Request a Free Van Nuys Building Evaluation →Institutional PE value-add is aggressive on clean Class C with value-add upside. They bid tight pricing on the thesis and drop fast when diligence surfaces issues.
1031 exchangers are steady on stabilized B and C. Less story-sensitive; more numbers-driven.
Local operators and syndicators are the durable buyer pool for middle-of-the-range deals. They acquire both on- and off-market. The mix shifts quarter to quarter. Listing timing matters in Van Nuys in a way it doesn't in Westside submarkets.
A sample of Van Nuys apartment buildings Michael Sterman has closed. Each links to the full deal record.
| Address | Units | Price | Closed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6503 Woodman Ave | 5 | $1,110,000 | 2022-01 |
| 13838 Vanowen St | 4 | $1,150,000 | 2021-05 |
| 15135 Victory Blvd | 21 | $2,750,000 | 2018-12 |
| 6535 Haskell Ave | 54 | $9,350,000 | 2018-08 |
| 7317 Haskell Ave | 48 | $9,650,000 | 2018-08 |
| 13907 Oxnard St | 50 | $10,875,000 | 2017-10 |
| 14949 Vanowen St | 30 | $5,450,000 | 2016-12 |
| 14024 Oxnard St | 44 | $7,500,000 | 2015-12 |
| 6823-6827 Hayvenhurst Ave | 10 | $1,460,000 | 2015-08 |
| 14137 Vanowen St | 39 | $4,345,000 | 2014-09 |
| 13415 Victory Boulevard | 7 | $730,000 | 2012-11 |
| 15111 Archwood Street | 68 | $7,650,000 | 2012-10 |
Computed from this desk’s own closed record in Van Nuys, not from a market report. Price per unit falls as buildings get larger, so comparing a six-unit building to a forty-unit building on price per door compares two different products — which is why this is banded by size rather than given as a single number. Across all 12 closings the median is $171,801 per unit.
| Building size | Closings | Median per unit | Range per unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4–10 units | 4 | $184,000 | $104,286 – $287,500 |
| 11–25 units | 1 | $130,952 (one sale, not a median) | — |
| 26–50 units | 5 | $181,667 | $111,410 – $217,500 |
| 51+ units | 2 | $142,824 | $112,500 – $173,148 |
How these figures are calculated, and what we do not claim →
The ten Los Angeles submarkets this desk has closed the most buildings in, on our own transactions rather than a published index. Top to bottom the median per door runs close to four times — which is why a citywide per-unit figure is close to useless for pricing a specific building.
| Submarket | Buildings | Units | Median per unit | Size range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hollywood | 24 | 562 | $282,589 | 3–75 |
| Koreatown | 21 | 465 | $158,958 | 4–96 |
| West Hollywood | 21 | 206 | $354,286 | 2–22 |
| Sherman Oaks | 17 | 349 | $237,708 | 6–47 |
| Palms | 13 | 337 | $296,875 | 7–118 |
| Glendale | 12 | 224 | $258,854 | 5–92 |
| Van Nuys | 12 | 380 | $171,801 | 4–68 |
| North Hollywood | 11 | 191 | $271,429 | 5–46 |
| Reseda | 8 | 506 | $156,639 | 10–138 |
| Santa Monica | 8 | 100 | $616,667 | 3–27 |
Fast: clean rent roll, documented operating history, LA City RSO registration current, no unpermitted units, tenant ledgers that match the rent roll. Slow: unpermitted garage conversions (common), RSO registration gaps, undocumented side deals, deferred capital beyond roof and plumbing, or ambiguous tenant occupancy (family arrangements, tenant-of-record disputes). The difference between fast and slow in Van Nuys is commonly 5-8% of sale price. That's real money on a $4M or $6M building.
Michael Sterman has spent 14 years specializing exclusively in Los Angeles multifamily, closing 248 transactions worth $1.38B. He knows how Van Nuys 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 Van Nuys building actually gets valued.
Thinking about selling? Get a no-obligation evaluation on your building.
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