LEXINGTON, KY - Steadfast Income REIT Inc. purchased Forty57, a 436-unit garden-style apartment complex for $52.5 million.

With this acquisition, the REIT now has invested more than $467 million in 25 apartment communities in nine states in the Midwest and South. This is the sixth Kentucky property acquired by Irvine, CA-based Steadfast, which also owns five apartment communities in Louisville. To date, the REIT has purchased over 5,600 apartment homes in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ohio and Texas. “This is our sixth property in Kentucky, but our first in Lexington,” Ella Shaw Neyland, president of Steadfast, says in a press release. “We feel that Lexington occupies an important position in the state's economy and is the financial, retail, healthcare and cultural core of the entire region.” Forty57 was constructed in four phases starting in 2008 and finishing up this year; it is currently 88% occupied, the firm said. The property consists of 19 three-story residential buildings that offer one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and townhomes, which have average rents of $860. Lexington has a strong local economy, which is boosted by tourism to its more than 450 horse farms and by its arts scene, which includes an orchestra, two ballet companies, a professional theatre troupe, several museums and an opera program at the University of Kentucky. Steadfast Income REIT is sponsored by Steadfast REIT Investments LLC, an affiliate of Steadfast Companies, an Orange County, CA-based group of affiliated real estate investment companies that acquire, develop and manage real estate in the U.S. and Mexico.