BOULDER — Apartment buildings in the Boulder Valley are in such demand that large investment companies are lining up to buy them, pushing prices to record highs — a level real estate agents describe as “ocean-view pricing.”
An influx of workers, a dearth of new construction and millennials content to remain tenants instead of buying homes have also pushed up rents, creating a frenzied multifamily market, local Realtors say.
In fact, the Boulder Valley was home to three of Colorado’s priciest deals this year.
Leading the list was the $48.8 million sale of The Province at Boulder, 950 28th St., in September for a per-unit price of $554,545. Resource America’s $65.25 million buy of Canterwood Apartments just last week came in No. 3, at $302,802 per unit. The October deal for The Retreat at Flatirons in Broomfield also cracked the top 10: the $94.5 million transaction landed at No. 8 with a $252,647 per unit price tag.
“There’s a lot of money going into real estate” right now, said Jeff Hawks, vice chairman of ARA Newmark, the firm that represented sellers in the Retreat deal. “And when you look at real estate, multifamily is the chosen one.”
That’s because the incredibly high demand for rental properties make investments in apartment complexes almost a sure thing — rising rents equal higher profits, and low vacancy rates mean you can count on an income stream.
“It’s not like in the commercial property where you have a handful of tenants,” said Cotton Burden, president of Niwot-based real estate company Burden Inc., which operates the Roosevelt Park apartments in Longmont.
The returns on investment also tend to be higher with multifamily, and growing rents are pushing that up.
