Two Indy apartment complexes sell for $35 million

Two northside Indianapolis apartment complexes have been snapped up by national investors for a total of nearly $35 million.

Steadfast Income REIT, based in Irvine, Calif., paid $18.4 million for the 268-unit Lodge at Trails Edge, located north of the Nora area at 9535 Benchmark Drive. The property was built in 1981 and is 97-percent leased, according to Steadfast.

The company acquired the complex from The Praedium Group, a New York City-based national real estate investment firm. Steadfast, which announced the purchase on Monday, will assume an existing $11 million mortgage on the property.

In a separate transaction, Atlanta-based The Radco Cos. has purchased the Lakewood Lodge complex from its lender for $16.5 million. The 454-unit property is just east of Keystone Avenue at 6630 Glenbrook Drive.

Radco is a turnaround specialist, and plans to rebrand the property as Ashford at Keystone, in addition to renovating the units and improving on-site management.
The acquisition is Radco’s third in the Midwest within the last 90 days; it announced the Lakewood Lodge acquisition Monday.

“We believe in the Midwest and we are very familiar with the market,” CEO Norman Radow said. “In the Indianapolis market in particular, we are seeing strong employment growth, and we are buying the property at an attractive going-in basis.”

The Indianapolis market for apartment investors started heating up in 2011, with sales of 42 properties containing 9,764 units.

The region attracts high-net-worth investors who have been priced out of the Northeast and the West Coast markets, according to broker George Tikijian III, senior managing director of Tikijian Associates. When investors look for alternatives to those markets, they look to Indianapolis, Tikijian said, because the city and state have a reputation for having stable, diversified economies.