DENVER-A new study by Cary Bruteig, principal with locally based Apartment Appraisers & Consultants, shows that investors year-to-date have paid $755 million for apartment communities in the metro area with at least 100 units. That is 65.5% more than the $456-million investment made in all of 2004. It's also 10.86% more than the record $681 million in apartments sold in 2000, before the market started going south after the slowdown in the economy and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

Indeed, there is no question that for the first time ever that total sales will eclipse $1 billion this year, Bruteig says. His numbers, for example, do not include TIAA-CREF's expected $176-million purchase of the Palomino Park Resort luxury apartment community in Highlands Ranch. That is by far the single largest apartment deal ever in the metro area. The next largest deal was a $90-million purchase in 2003 in Lakewood, next to the Bel Mar development, a mixed-use community that is creating Lakewood's downtown.

Jeff Hawks and Doug Andrews of locally based Apartment Realty Advisors, who have sold more apartments than anyone else in the city's history, will continue that trend this year. Hawks and Andrews are selling Palomino Park, and when that deal closes they will have sold more than $500 million this year, eclipsing their previous best year of $320 million. Hawks tells GlobeSt.com that some national analysts are putting Denver on the top of their lists as an investment opportunity.

"We do not track sales volume," Greg Willett, of M/PF YieldStar in Dallas, tells GlobeSt.com, when he was asked about the Denver market. "While I don't have specific information about the Denver market, I will say that buyers want to buy at the bottom. And really the two areas that are the last to recover in the nation are Denver and Texas, specifically Dallas and Houston in Texas. So these three markets--Denver, Dallas and Houston--have been very hot markets for apartment investors this year versus almost any market."

According to Willett, Denver differs from alternative markets in that other regions are seeing condo converters scooping up everything they can. That is true to some degree in Denver, "but there also are opportunities for traditional investors who will keep the units as apartments in Denver, while those investors are being shut out almost everyplace else," Willett says.

Craig Stack, an apartment broker with CB Richard Ellis, also is having a good year. He says that he and partner Steve Rahe already have sold a personal record of $122 million in apartments this year, with another $75 million in deals either under contract or about to go under contract. Additionally, he tells GlobeSt.com that he knows of at least another five deals in the works of $30 million or more in the works, which are expected to close by year end, allowing investors to take advantage of still low interest rates. Those deals, with Palomino Park, means that in the neighborhood of $1.2 billion in apartment communities will trade hands this year.