June 3, 2013

Multi-Family Wire

SEATTLE – Greystar Real Estate Partners of Charleston, S.C. has purchased land across the street from the Amazon headquarters where it will build a 282-unit apartment project. Hendricks-Berkadia  handled the sale of three land parcels on Boren Avenue North in Seattle for the new Greystar project. The parcels were sold for a total of $21,865,000.The land transactions were negotiated by Marty Leith and Kenny Dudunakis of the Seattle office of Hendricks-Berkadia.

CHICAGO  - The RADCO Companies of Atlanta, Ga. has announced that it has closed its 19th real estate purchase in the past 12 months with the acquisition of Covington Court in St. Charles, Ill. The 208-unit multifamily property, currently 94.7 percent occupied, was purchased by RADCO in a $19.25M transaction, and will be rebranded as Ashford St. Charles. Its acquisition of the property further signifies RADCO’s strong commitment to the suburban Chicago market, where the company also recently purchased Brittany Court, and rebranded it as Ashford at Geneva.

TUCSON, Ariz. – Hendricks-Berkadia announced the sale of Oracle Village, located at 5921 North Oracle Road in Tucson. The 144-unit apartment community was sold for $9,000,000, or $62,500 per unit..The Seller was an affiliate of HSL Properties of Tucson. The Buyer was an affiliate of Hamilton/Zanze of San Francisco. The transaction was negotiated by Art Wadlund of the Tucson office of Hendricks-Berkadia.

 

HOUSTON – M-M Properties will develop the 193-unit Hermann Park Plaza Apartments near the Texas Medical Center in Houston. The project will be located at 5745 Almeda near Highway 288. According to the Houston Chronicle  other projects under construction nearby include Elan Med Center, a 281-unit project by Greystar at 7010 Staffordshire Blvd. and Valencia Place, a 246-unit complex at 3131 W. Bellfort.

FRISCO, Texas  - Colonial Properties Trust purchased of the 252-unit Colonial Reserve at Frisco Bridges (formerly Ablon at Frisco Bridges) near Dallas for $36.2 million. Colonial Reserve at Frisco Bridges is a newly developed Class A mid-rise apartment community located in the Frisco submarket. Completed in 2013, the project is 30 percent leased.

LOS ANGELES – Trion Properties,  a Los Angeles-based real estate investment company acquired two multifamily properties in the California cities of El Cajon and Sacramento.In El Cajon, Trion acquired a 22-unit apartment building for $2,350,000, or $106,818 per unit. In Sacramento, the company acquired a 128-unit apartment building from a lender for $4,900,000, or $38,281 per unit.

 

June 18, 2013

Houston Home Sales Hit All-Time Record

By Ralph Bivins

Houston home sales hit their highest monthly sales total ever in May, establishing a new record of 7,794 home sales in a single-month, the Houston Association of Realtors reported.

The May sales total, up 28 percent over May 2012, shattered the previous monthly record established in June 2006 when 7,688 single-family homes were sold in the Houston area, the realty association reported.

“The market isn’t just red hot, it’s white hot,” said Shad Bogany, chairman of the Texas Association of Realtors. “The Houston market is one of the best in the country.”

Low mortgage rates and strong job growth have generated a boom of home selling over the last two years in Houston. The city’s economy has been expanding, adding over 110,000 new jobs to the Houston economy over the last 12 months.
Home prices hit new records in May. The median home price was $188,000 in May, up about 12 percent from May of last year. It is the highest median price on record, the Houston realty association reported.

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June 13, 2013

Ralph Bivins, Editor of RealtyNewsReport, Named Winner in NAREE Journalism Competition

HOUSTON – Ralph Bivins, editor of RealtyNewsReport,  has been named a winner in the “Best Commercial Real Estate Report” category of the National Association of Real Estate Editors 63rd Annual Journalism Awards.

Award winners in 25 categories were selected by a panel of expert judges from the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.

Bivins’ article about the sale of the Exxon Mobil skyscraper in downtown Houston for CultureMap.com received a Bronze Award in the national competition.

Judges provided this comment about Bivins’ work for CultureMap: “This breaking news article focused on the purchase of the Exxon Mobil tower in Houston. It is a great example of an explanatory story that shows the possible ramifications of a purchase of this magnitude.”

The award ceremony took place at the NAREE Annual Real Estate Journalism Conference in Atlanta last week.  Daniel DiClerico of Consumer Reports won NAREE’s Platinum Award for Best Overall Entry and Nancy Keates of the Wall Street Journal took the Gold Award for Best Collection of Work.

The National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE) is a non-profit association founded in 1929.

June 11, 2013

Real Estate Alert: Two Galleria Hotels Up For Sale

HOUSTON – Two hotels connected to Houston’s Galleria are up for sale, according to Real Estate Alert newsletter. The 487-room Westin Galleria and the 406-room Westin Oaks have an estimated total value of about $210 million, or $235,000 per room. The owner, Walton Street Capital, has listed the hotels with Eastdil Secured.The Westin Galleria, at 5060 West Alabama Road, and the Westin Oaks, at 5011 Westheimer Road, are both connected to the 2.3 million-sf Galleria mixed-use complex which was developed by Hines. The hotels are operated by Starwood Hotels & Resorts of Stamford, Conn.

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