SAN ANTONIO-A five-week marketing program by the Austin office of Apartment Realty Advisors has paid off with a quick sale of the six-year-old, 322-unit Lodge at Shavano Park in northwest San Antonio.

Patton Jones, sales director for ARA's Austin office, tells GlobeSt.com that buyer, the Frankel Family Trust of Anaheim, CA, and seller asked that the price remain undisclosed. However, area brokers familiar with the northwest multifamily submarket, the property and current replacement costs tell GlobeSt.com the price would have been at least $100,000 per unit or upward of $32 million.

"The challenge in San Antonio today is getting investors to look past the current apartment construction pipeline," Jones says. About a dozen offers came in from private and institutional investors after ARA pitched Shavano Park's high single-family home prices and the area's strong employment base, the deal's lone broker adds.

Jones expects the complex to maintain its 93% occupancy level and probably improve because of its location near the South Texas Medical Center and USAA, which employ a combined 40,000 workers. Another demographic factor favoring the continued success of the apartments is San Antonio's MSA population, which is expected to grow from 1.6 million to more than two million within five years, he says.

The deal was done to complete KC Ventures' three-year hold plan. The seller had owned the property for 3.5 years.

The Lodge at Shavano Park was built in 2001 by Hanover, "a developer renowned for building high-quality, multifamily assets," Jones points out. "The quality of the construction, its location near the medical center and attractive cap rate yield of roughly 5% contributed to the high interest in this asset." The average unit is 867 sf. The average gross rent is $1 per sf.