A 378-unit waterfront apartment complex in Oakland's Brooklyn Basin neighborhood has been foreclosed after its loan failed, with an affiliate of Essex Property Trust taking control of the property, according to Alameda County files. The transaction valued Portico Waterfront at $70.4 million, a steep drop from the $168.2 million the county had assessed the property at in January 2026.
County Records Show the Transfer
Portico sits at 37 8th Ave. in the Brooklyn Basin master-planned community, and more than 80% of its units overlook the water, according to cityview.com. The eight-story project was completed by developer Cityview, which lost ownership through the foreclosure, and its construction generated more than 2,000 jobs for the community. As reported by The Mercury News, San Mateo-based Essex Property Trust positioned itself to take over the complex by purchasing the underlying financing instrument from Bank OZK, according to county documents. The Alameda County Recorder's Office received the transaction documents on October 7.
The $70.4 million valuation placed on Portico in the foreclosure transaction came in 58.1% below the county's assessed value, per the same Mercury News report. That gap mirrors a pattern seen across Oakland's rental market, where loan delinquencies and foreclosures have jolted a growing number of apartment properties, most of them concentrated in downtown Oakland.
A City Full of Distressed Apartment Deals
Portico now joins a lengthening list of Oakland multifamily properties that have changed hands through lender action over roughly the past year. The 105-unit Mason at Hive at 2350 Valley Street was taken back by Fannie Mae after an unpaid debt of $34.8 million, with the lender placing a $27.8 million value on the property, according to mercurynews.com. A separate account from The Real Deal described the foreclosure as following a default on a $39.7 million loan by owner Signature Development — the two reports differ on the loan figure tied to that seizure.
Just days earlier, on August 4, a lender reclaimed The Nook on Valdez, a nearby micro-apartment complex, the Mercury News reported. The Real Deal identified that lender as Pacific Premier Bank, which took control of the 71-unit development at 2425 Valdez Street after its owner defaulted on the loan. Oakland's apartment distress has also swept up larger portfolios: a group of nine apartment complexes in the Lake Merritt neighborhood changed ownership through a foreclosed loan for $30 million, roughly 68% below their total assessed value, per The Real Deal.
Discounted Sales Keep Piling Up
Other recent Oakland foreclosure sales have landed at similarly steep discounts. The 97-unit Telegraph Arts complex, which had defaulted on a $31.6 million loan according to Multifamily Dive, was later acquired by a CW Capital subsidiary for roughly $31.1 million — sources differ on the unit count, with the Mercury News describing it as a 98-unit property. The Real Deal reported that the $31.1 million sale price sat nearly 50% below the complex's assessed value of $61.9 million as of January 2025.
The 78-unit Moran, which had defaulted on a $20.7 million loan, eventually sold for $20.3 million, about 53% below its most recent valuation, The Real Deal reported. The Leamington sold for $14.4 million after foreclosure, a 58.3% discount from its prior value, according to the Multifamily Dive report. And at 1919 Market Street in West Oakland, Parkview Financial foreclosed on a 102-unit property tied to $58.5 million in unpaid debt, spending $37.5 million to take control, per the same outlet.
Softening Values Behind the Wave of Defaults
Apartment values appear to have faltered across Oakland, a trend that has contributed to the climbing rate of loan delinquencies and foreclosures, mercurynews.com reported. A Marcus & Millichap report covering the second quarter of 2026 found that the average price per apartment unit continued to decline in the East Bay during that stretch, part of broader financial setbacks that have left East Bay apartment prices flat or falling. The East Bay's average price per unit stayed below $280,000 during 2026, well under the roughly $385,000 per-unit figure Marcus & Millichap estimated for the South Bay over the same period.
Oakland's rental fundamentals have shown some improvement even as values slide. The city's apartment vacancy rate fell from a pandemic-era peak of 18.1% in November 2020 to 6.9% in January 2026, and rents rose 2.9% year over year as of February 2026 after climbing in nine of the prior 12 months, according to Multifamily Dive. Still, the market remains well below pre-pandemic strength in some submarkets — in the Residences at Lake Merritt submarket, rents were running 30% below pre-pandemic levels, with two to three months of concessions typical, the outlet reported, a dynamic it tied to roughly 10,000 new housing units delivered across the city in just a few years and the resulting difficulty refinancing construction loans.
New construction has pulled back sharply as a result. Oakland saw a 32% decline in new construction over the year covered by CBRE data cited by The Oaklandside, which also reported that Oakland-Berkeley rents were down 3.2% year over year in the third quarter of 2024 alongside a 7.7% multifamily vacancy rate. Downtown office vacancies, a related drag on the broader commercial market, climbed to 26.5% in the first quarter of 2026, up six percentage points from roughly two years earlier.
Voters to Weigh In on Foreclosure Tax Breaks
The wave of lender takeovers has fed into a ballot measure. Oakland voters will decide in November whether to eliminate property-transfer-tax exemptions currently available to lenders that seize properties over unpaid loans, a change city officials estimate could generate between $4 million and $13 million annually for the city.
