The short version
E&S Ring, a family-owned Los Angeles apartment company, has refinanced six Southern California apartment complexes with $95.8 million in new loans from Voya Investment Management. Five of the six properties, about 1,061 apartments, are in Los Angeles County: two in Brentwood, one on Los Feliz Boulevard, one in Mid-Wilshire and one in Culver City. The sixth, a 400-unit complex, is in Victorville in San Bernardino County.
Brokerage Northmarq, which arranged the E&S Ring refinancing, announced it on Thursday, Oct. 22, and Commercial Observer reported the deal that afternoon. Nothing changes hands. The same family keeps the buildings, and the new debt replaces loans that were coming due. For LA agents, the deal is a reminder of how much of the city's rental stock sits in older complexes that long-time owners would rather refinance than sell.
What was refinanced
According to Northmarq's announcement, the portfolio totals 1,461 units:
- Casa Granada, 168 units, and Sunset Barrington Gardens, 183 units, both on Barrington Avenue in Brentwood
- Rancho Los Feliz, 317 units, at 3205 Los Feliz Boulevard (E&S Ring's property listing places it in Atwater Village)
- Villa Vicente, 276 units, on San Vicente Boulevard in Mid-Wilshire
- Meadows South, 117 units, on Green Valley Circle in Culver City
- Mountain Vista, 400 units, in Victorville
Multi-Housing News reported that the complexes opened between the early 1960s and the mid-1980s. That age range matters, because it decides which local rent rules apply, as explained below.
How the loans work
A refinancing replaces an owner's existing mortgage with a new one. Owners usually do it when an old loan reaches its maturity date, the day the remaining balance must be paid. Northmarq said the deal "addressed upcoming maturities," and that four of the old loans were originally placed with Voya in 2007.
The new financing has a few features worth knowing:
- Six separate loans, not cross-collateralized. Each loan is secured only by its own property. If one complex struggled, the lender could not pursue the other five to cover that loan. Owners like this because they can sell or refinance one building without untangling the rest.
- A mix of fixed and floating rates. Fixed-rate loans keep the same rate for the term. Floating-rate loans move with a market benchmark, which can help or hurt as rates change.
- Interest-only payments. For a set period, the owner pays only interest, not principal. That keeps monthly payments lower and can ease cash flow.
- Flexible prepayment terms. These set what the owner pays to retire a loan early, which matters if the owner later wants to sell.
The announcement did not disclose interest rates, loan terms or how much the properties are worth, so the deal cannot be used to judge current values.
Who E&S Ring is
The company traces back to two brothers. Dr. Ellis Ring, a Rochester, N.Y., dentist, moved to Los Angeles after a fall broke his hip, and teamed up with his brother Selden on apartment development, as the Los Angeles Times reported in 1989. That article credited the partnership with building more than 6,000 apartments in the LA area, including the 981-unit Mariners Village in Marina del Rey.
Their signature was the garden apartment: low-rise buildings arranged around landscaped courtyards, streams and pools instead of a lobby and a staircase. A 1996 Times column by Robert A. Jones argued that the Ring brothers created the form and mentioned the Casa Granadas among its familiar examples. E&S Ring says the company is now in its third generation of family ownership. Northmarq's Andrew Slaton said the family originally developed many of the refinanced communities and has kept reinvesting in them.
Why the building age matters: rent rules
Inside the City of Los Angeles, the Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO), run by the Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD), generally covers rental buildings first built on or before Oct. 1, 1978. The RSO limits yearly rent increases for sitting tenants and restricts evictions. A complex in this portfolio that opened in the 1960s or early 1970s would generally fall under it, while one finished after October 1978 would not. The announcement did not list each building's year, so check each address before drawing conclusions.
The RSO cap just got tighter. In December 2025, the City Council voted 12 to 2 to change the formula, as the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles summarized. Starting July 1, 2026, the annual increase is 90% of the change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a common inflation measure, with a floor of 1% and a ceiling of 4%. The old range was 3% to 8%. LAHD's rent bulletin sets the allowed increase at 3% from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027, and says landlords can no longer add an extra percentage for utilities.
There is one big release valve. Under the RSO, an owner may raise rent to market when a tenant moves out voluntarily, which is why turnover units drive much of an RSO building's income growth.
Culver City has its own rules. Its Rent Stabilization Ordinance, made permanent in 2020, caps yearly increases for most units built on or before Feb. 1, 1995. The cap is 3.25% for increases from June 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027.
The debate over older buildings
Owners and tenant groups read these caps very differently. In a November 2025 letter in City Council file 23-1134, the California Apartment Association argued that stricter rent control reduces both the quality and quantity of housing, and that CPI does not capture the capital costs of keeping old buildings running. In the same file, Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights backed an even lower cap, pointing to Santa Monica's 3% maximum.
Researchers say the stakes are large. The USC Neighborhood Data for Social Change team's 2026 report on naturally affordable housing found that buildings built before 2000 hold about 75% of the county's roughly 1.08 million apartments in buildings of five or more units. It found that renters in older buildings pay less, a median of about $1,910 in the smallest pre-2000 buildings compared with $2,479 in post-2000 complexes, and concluded that preserving this stock is essential. That report's categories stop at 99 units, so large complexes like these fall outside its definition, but its numbers show how much of LA's supply is older housing.
Where the LA apartment market stands
The refinancing comes as investors return to LA apartments while rents stay flat. Colliers data reported by Commercial Observer show $3.3 billion in sales of LA County buildings with 50 or more units through the third quarter, up 44% from a year earlier, at an average of $357,085 per unit. Occupancy was 94.1%, and average effective rent, meaning rent after move-in specials, was $2,428, the same as a year earlier. The Westside, which includes Brentwood, had the highest rents at $3,336 a month but occupancy of 92.9%, below the county average.
Lending is also picking up. At its February conference, the Mortgage Bankers Association forecast higher multifamily lending in 2026 and pointed to a rise in maturing loans as one reason, Multi-Housing News reported. E&S Ring's deal is one of those maturing loans being rolled into new debt rather than forcing a sale.
What happens next
There is no public next step for this deal. The loans have closed, and Northmarq will service them. For the rent rules, LAHD bases each year's RSO increase on CPI data for the 12 months ending Sept. 30, and we did not find a published figure yet for the year starting July 1, 2027. Culver City published its current cap in June.
What it means for LA agents
- Expect few listings of classic garden complexes. Family owners who can refinance usually do. When an older Westside complex does come to market, it is rare, so price conversations need care.
- Check rent status before you value any older building. Look up the address with LAHD for RSO status, and remember Culver City's 1995 cutoff. A 3% cap this year, and 1% to 4% going forward, changes how fast income can grow.
- Use the right comps. Colliers' $357,085 per unit is a countywide average for 50-plus-unit buildings. Older buildings in some areas have traded far lower, as in the recent Violet on Virgil sale.
- Ask small-building owners about loan dates. A loan coming due is often what forces the choice between refinancing and selling. Knowing the maturity date tells you when a listing conversation is timely.
- Treat turnover units as the value driver. In RSO buildings, a voluntary move-out is when rent can reset to market, so how quickly and well a vacant unit is prepared and leased matters to the owner's numbers.
This post summarizes public reports. For rent rules on a specific property, check with LAHD, the City of Culver City or a qualified attorney.