. . . While S.D. Is Strong Third

While Japanese investors were cutting back in overall U.S. real estate acquisitions last year, their investments in San Diego County last year totaled $1.05 billion, just short of the record-setting level of $1.1 billion in local transactions completed in 1989.

For the second straight year, San Diego County was the scene of the third-highest concentration of Japanese investments in the nation, ranking behind Los Angeles, with $1.7 billion, and Honolulu, with $1.3 billion, according to a nationwide study by Kenneth Leventhal & Co.

About 8% of all Japanese dollar investments in U.S. real estate in 1990 were transacted in the metropolitan San Diego area.

The Japanese acquisitions in San Diego exemplified a trend toward more housing and raw land deals, as well as a drop-off in interest in office projects, said Mitchell P. Ellner, partner in the San Diego office of Kenneth Leventhal & Co. There was also a significant drop in joint-venture construction deals with U.S. developers, he said.

“With the amount of land acquisitions we saw in San Diego last year, we have expectations of continued future development and investment activities” in San Diego as the raw land that has been acquired is built out, Ellner said.

Among the major 1990 acquisitions by the Japanese last year was the deal for the 1,700-acre Pacific Cielo property near Rancho Santa Fe, a $70.3 million purchase. Also last year, Nissho Iwai Trading Co. bought the 850-acre Point Resort site in Spring Valley for $143 million. Kaiza Poinsettia of Japan bought the 168-acre Batiquitos Lagoon Educational Park property in Carlsbad.

Of the $1.05 billion in total transactions in the county, about 36% was spent on the acquisition of residential and raw land properties. About 29% was spent on hotel and resort properties, Ellner said, virtually the same percentage as the Japanese spent on that classification of properties nationwide. Only 1% was spent locally on office properties, he said.