Grubb & Ellis Buys Two Apartment Complexes in Metro Atlanta

Grubb & Ellis Apartment REIT Inc. has acquired two Class A apartment communities totaling nearly 500 units in the metro Atlanta area. Grubb purchased the 216-unit AMLI at Kedron Village multi-family community in Peachtree City from AMLI Residential and Prudential Real Estate Investors, and the 280-unit Creekside Crossing in Lithonia from Harbor Group International, Norfolk, Va. In the Kedron Village transaction, the seller was represented by Engler Financial Group L.L.C., and financing through Freddie Mac was arranged by Capmark Finance. According to the 8-K filed with the SEC, The pricetag for Creekside was $25.4 million. It was financed with a secured $17 million loan from Freddie Mac and a $9.5 million loan from Wachovia Bank. Kedron Village was purchased for $29.6 million, with a secured $20 million Freddie Mac loan and with another $6.5 million from the same revolving line of credit with Wachovia.Situated on a little over 21 acres, AMLI at Kedron Village was completed in 2001. The property consists of six townhouse buildings with two- and three-bedroom apartments, seven three-story garden apartment buildings with one- through three-bedroom apartments, a leasing center and four detached garages. Amenities include a fitness center, business center, swimming pool and car care center. The property is 93 percent occupied. In the Creekside Crossing deal, Harbor Group was represented by Cushman & Wakefield Inc., and Freddie Mac financing was again arranged by Capmark Finance. Completed in 2003, Creekside Crossing comprises 10 three- and four-story buildings that include floor plans ranging from one-bedroom, one-bath units to three-bedroom, two-bath units. The site also includes a leasing center, a car care center and 37 storage units. Other amenities include a fitness center, business center, swimming pool and controlled access gates. The property is currently 92 percent occupied. Elliott Hollander, director of the national multihousing group at Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Group, told CPN that for core, Class A apartment properties in metro Atlanta, “there has been very little slowdown” and little compression of cap rates. Most recent transactions involving Class A communities, he said, have been in the low to mid 6’s, with possibly some in the high 5’s. The high residential mortgage foreclosure rate in Georgia, Hollander said, is fueling the multifamily market. In one case he knows of, a couple bought a highly leveraged single-family home, defaulted and were foreclosed on and wound up living in the very same apartment unit they’d moved out of before buying the house. Professionally managed apartment communities in metro Atlanta, he said, are actually doing better now than they were from 2002 till 2005 or 2006.