Laguna Niguel real estate investor Raintree Partners significantly boosted its L.A. presence at the end of the year, snapping up a two-property multifamily package that added 327 units to its portfolio.

The company acquired three other properties with a combined 149 units earlier in the year.

“We invest up and down California, but I’d say we’re the most bullish right now on Los Angeles,” said Aaron Hancock, Raintree’s director of acquisitions. “The recovery in L.A. has really been accelerating over the last year or two.”

He estimated that 90 percent of Raintree’s investments last year were apartment deals in Los Angeles, including two complexes in Hancock Park purchased in April and a 39-unity property in Studio City acquired in September.

Terms of the most recent transaction were not disclosed, but according to real estate data provider CoStar Group Inc., one building, the Westwood Apartments, a 153-unit multifamily property at 415 Gayley Ave., traded for $54.5 million, or about $356,000 a unit.

The seller was Carmel Partners, a San Francisco investor in multifamily properties that purchased the property for $20.5 million in 2005. Representatives of carmel could not be reached for comment.

Raintree also snagged the Pico Lanai Apartments, a 174-unit community at 2501 Pico Blvd. in Santa Monica, in the deal, which closed in late December. The purchase price on that property could not be determined.

Raintree intends to spend $7.8 million to make over the two properties, which were built in the early 1960s.

“You get a ton of drive-by traffic there,” Hancock said of the Pico Lanai property, “but the property sticks out like a sore thumb. It just looks dated.”