LAWRENCE, KS-Vesper Holdings, based in New York City, has purchased the 248-unit Hawks Pointe Apartments for more than $12 million. The collection of three student housing properties, near the campus of the University of Kansas, was sold by Aspen Square Management.

The 463-bed community is split up into three separate properties, containing 20 two- and three-story buildings, located from one to five blocks away from the college campus. The properties are fully occupied, says Isaac Sitt with Vesper. Amenities at the various properties include swimming pools, picnic and grilling areas, and a two-story clubhouse. The cap rate on the sale was 7.5%, he says.

Sitt tells GlobeSt.com that the purchase is part of a strategy to invest in well-located student housing assets with stable, growing cash flows in high barrier-to-entry markets. “A very small percentage of students actually live on campus, they just don’t have room for all the students,” Sitt says. The firm made a similar purchase in the Detroit area in July, buying the 18-building Harbor House Apartments for more than $13 million.

Student housing has been one of the best performing assets in commercial real estate, Sitt says. “Just in the past three years, the percentage of high school graduates attending college each year jumped from 67% to 70%. That’s much more than the 1990 figure of only 50%, and the population of incoming students just keeps growing,” he says.