The local division of the Apartment Group/Cushman & Wakefield received 12 offers for the two-year-old, 252-unit, 92%-leased property. Brokers Jay Ballard, Cole Whitaker and Hall Warren closed the deal for Atlanta owner Wood Partners with B&M Management Co. of Birmingham, AL for $22.4 million, or about $89,000 per unit.

The Apartment Group sent out offers on the property to 40 potential buyers. "This was a very quick deal," Ballard tells GlobeSt.com. "We were under a relatively quick marketing time frame, and that, coupled with helping the out-of-town buyers overcome the perception of the neighborhood (ChampionsGate and Reunion Resort), being a little 'green' was a challenge."

Ballard says his team cemented the deal by "taking an extremely hands-on approach with the buyer and all of their underwriting, from touring their lender, their appraiser and their key equity partners around the market to make sure they were comfortable with the potential of the market and the property over the next few years."

Eventually, the brokers says, "they understood the potential impact of the new 730-room Omni Hotel opening next summer, as well as the (new) residential construction at Reunion (Resort)."

The deal carried a 7% cap rate "on actuals in place" at closing, Ballard tells GlobeSt.com. He says the $89,000-per-unit price is not below replacement cost, a measuring factor that is becoming more difficult to analyze in various communities.

The property's suburban location in a large-scale planned development (ChampionsGate) in Osceola County and recently raised impact development fees in the county "seriously impact replacement cost today in Central Florida," Ballard says.

He adds that other factors affecting replacement cost comparisons are a lack of available zoned sites in locations that support multifamily apartment development; stiff competition from homebuilders on available sites for development or for-sale multifamily product such as townhomes, zero-lot line or stacked flats in two or three-story condo projects; and the (local) Martinez Doctrine "relating to the restriction on the rezoning of sites, mostly in Orange County, from other zoning classifications to single or multifamily due to school over-crowding has created a dearth of sites in Orange County."

Wood Partners, whose suburban Winter Park, FL office handled this transaction, did the deal at this time because its mission is to "build, lease, stabilize and sell" its assets as quickly as the market dictates, Ballard tells GlobeSt.com.

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