Apartment sellers testing market again

Several local apartment properties are back on the market as owners try to appeal to private investors looking for deals before higher interest rates and inflation dampen their enthusiasm.

Among the properties is Grande Reserve at Geist, a Class A property that changed hands in 2006, and four complexes owned by Denver-based Apartment Investment & Management Co., the giant apartment owner that has sold 16 Indiana properties in the last 18 months. The AIMCO properties are:

– Scandia, a 444-unit complex at 91st Street and Allisonville Road  built in 1979. It had been listed for about a year with Tikijian Associates. The new listing agent is Steve LaMotte at CB Richard Ellis.

– Bayhead Village, a 202-unit complex near Interstate 465 and West 38th Street built in 1978. It’s listed by Tikijian.

– Fisherman’s Village. Listed by Tikijian, the property near Interstate 465 and Crawfordsville Road has 328 units and was built in 1982.

– Pebble Point, a 220-unit property adjacent to Fisherman’s Village that was built in 1980. Tikijian has the listing.

AIMCO pulled all four properties off the market last November while it reevaluated its goal of selling off Midwest properties to pay down debt. The company also recently listed the 2,009-unit Canterbury Green complex in Fort Wayne. The company’s five Indiana properties are among a dozen nationwide it has on the market.

Another west-side property, Chesapeake Landing, had been for sale and recently returned to the market, said Cassidy Turley broker Scott Pollom, the listing agent. The 478-unit complex, owned for the last four years by a New Jersey-based private investment group, was finished in 1978 and renovated in 2006.  

The Grande Reserve at Geist is a 146-unit apartment complex on Fox Road at Geist Reservoir. The complex, built in 1996, is one of three local properties owned by Muhamad Becovic and operated by his firm Becovic Management Group. It’s listed by Steve LaMotte of CB Richard Ellis for almost $13.4 million.

The Geist property, because it’s relatively new and in a highly desirable location, is considered a Class A property, a group that has seen little sales activity since the dawn of the recession.

As such, there are few such properties on the market here, which LaMotte thinks will work in his seller’s favor. “There’s a lot of private capital coming into the market chasing limited [Class A] deals,” he said.

George Tikijian of Tikijian Associates said most of the opportunities in the market so far have been for lower-grade properties, creating some pent-up demand for Class A properties.

The AIMCO properties here are older but are desirable enough from a location standpoint that AIMCO won’t take the first deal that comes along. Tikijian said AIMCO’s goal is to sell the west-side complexes for a per-unit price in the mid-$30,000 range. It wants in the mid-50s per unit for Scandia because of its north-side location. He said he fielded several offers for the properties between six and nine months ago, but none were high enough to satisfy the seller.

Tikijian said buyers might be more motivated now as they try to make deals before expected hikes in interest rates and inflation.

Pollom of Cassidy Turley said that while apartments are easier to finance than retail and office real estate, it’s still a challenge. Buyers have scooped up distressed low-end properties for all cash. But at higher price points “there’s a lot of frustrated private investment money out there,” he said.

If lenders would loosen up a bit “the apartment market would go crazy,” he said.