Getting your player ready...
Nobody needs to tell apartment developers Darell and Daren Schmidt that Denver’s reported return on real estate investment is hitting some of the highest rankings in the nation this year. Daren and Darell Schmidt, a talented father/son team, completed a $19 million mixed-use apartment development called Highland Place last spring, and recently received an appraisal on the building of $25.1 million – $6.1 million more than it had cost to build.
That was music to the ears of Schmidt’s investors, many of whom then re-upped for a project they are set to build a mile west of Highlands in Denver’s trendy Berkeley neighborhood. Tennyson Place, 81 class-A units, is now fully designed for a site along Tennyson Street’s restaurant row. Schmidt’s Allanté Properties is now finalizing the last of the investment positions to small investors, as the company is commencing construction this week. The last remaining investment positions are not expected to last long. Designed by Oz Architects, the concept will offer convenient walk-to accessibility to the rapidly developing dining/tavern scene on Tennyson Street, which includes Axios Estiatorio, Atomic Cowboy, West End Tap House, Berkeley Untapped, and Patrick Carroll’s. The unit mix at Tennyson Place, according to Schmidt, includes 80 percent designated as smaller and more affordable — either studios, or what Schmidt calls ‘micro units,’ some as small as 356 square feet. Those smaller units, says Daren Schmidt, are designed for the budget conscious renters who are being priced out of a rental market that’s too heavily oriented toward larger luxury units. The sizing strategy, he adds, was proven out at Allanté’s Highlands Place with its rapid lease up. Currently, 100 percent of the available apartments and retail space is leased, which projects high level returns for Allanté’s investors. Residents in Tennyson Place will enjoy exciting common areas including a club room with fitness center, mid-level terraces, Sky Deck with fire pits, an outdoor kitchen with unobstructed mountain views and underground parking. The remaining positions for accredited investors, Darell Schmidt says, begin at $100,000. “Few investors understand the ups and downs of the stock market,” Schmidt says. Apartment investments, he adds, make for a sounder mid-term investment that’s all the more viable here in Denver — now performing near the top of the nation’s real estate markets. Last week, metro Denver was listed as the second best return for investors of 50 major real estate markets in the nation, according to BiggerPockets – slightly behind Dallas, ahead of hot markets in Miami, Houston and Atlanta. This week, Realtor.com named Denver as the very hottest of 20 U.S. housing markets to watch this fall. “You’re buying a position in a class-A asset at a discount to the retail value it will have when built and leased,” Schmidt says. “Where else can you purchase class-A real estate at a discounted price?”
