San Francisco Magazine Covers The Lembi Fallout

The Lembi story in San Francisco is not a new story. The family, through Trophy Properties, Skyline Realty, and CitiApartments, was at one point was the largest owner of apartment buildings in the city. The group controlled over 8,000 apartment units at the peak, using extremely high amounts of leverage to acquire them.

Notice of defaults, trustee sales, etc. continue to be filed against some of their properties as the empire has unraveled over the course of the past year. San Francisco Magazine has covered the whole story, and it is worth the read.

Those who weren’t profiting from the Lembis’ deals, however, were mystified by what the family was doing—and where they were getting the money to keep buying. “Skyline Realty is like an anaconda that just swallowed a herd of water buffalo, horns and all,” wrote one broker who has specialized in city rental properties for 25 years. Adds David Gruber, “Paying what they did, no one could figure out how they were going to continue buying property. It was unsustainable.”

[via San Francisco Magazine]

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