$8.55M Acquisition Loan on a 33-Unit Los Feliz Apartment Building

The marketing for 4310 Russell Avenue leaned on one fact above the rest: built in 1987, the building does not fall under the City of Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance, per its listing materials. That vintage is scarce in Los Feliz, and it is the backdrop for the May 2026 financing: City National Bank recorded an $8,550,000 deed of trust on May 28, 2026, executed May 20, for buyer Willow Russell LLC. The seller of record is Taylor Equities 30 LLC. No purchase price for the 2026 transfer has been published.

County records list 33 units and 31,500 square feet; the marketing materials describe 34 units, with 32 two bedroom units of roughly 1,000 square feet, one single of about 350 square feet, and one two bedroom townhouse of about 1,200 square feet. The building has been marketed as the Russell Apartments and the Russell Avenue Apartments. A July 2026 rental listing shows two bedroom units asking from $3,200 a month.

The recent transaction history is well documented. Brokerage records show the property sold for $12,900,000 in a sale that closed October 6, 2023, and JPMorgan Chase recorded an $8,120,000 deed of trust in January 2024. The 2026 transfer and the City National Bank loan follow barely two years later.

The longer chain runs to 1988 and touches fourteen distinct lenders: a Glendale Federal deed of trust the year after the building was completed, Home Savings of America in the 1990s, Citibank and a 361 month First Federal Bank of California loan in the 2000s, a OneWest modification in 2012, and portfolio scale instruments in 2017 and 2019 that crossed this parcel at $22,300,000 and $31,000,000. Few buildings this size carry a title history that maps four decades of California lending this completely.

City National Bank, a Royal Bank of Canada subsidiary, lists multifamily among its core property types and has six closings tracked on LoanList, three of them in Los Angeles, making it one of the database's more active bank lenders. Within the tracked Los Angeles record this loan ranks 43rd of 58 by size, in a crowded band of spring multifamily closings: $9,000,000 from PNC Bank, $9,100,000 from J.P. Morgan in Azusa, $9,600,000 from J.P. Morgan in Torrance, and a $10,000,000 bridge loan from Arixa Capital in Beverly Hills.

For apartment buyers, the vintage is the lesson. A 1987 building offered free of the city's rent stabilization regime drew a bank acquisition loan within days of closing, and the tracked record shows several major banks competing in exactly this size band. Owners of similar post 1978 buildings in Los Angeles are sitting on an asset class lenders actively want.