LEESBURG, VA-Loudoun County, a submarket that suffers from the peculiarity of having one of the highest per capita incomes in the country, as well as some of the highest commercial real estate vacancy rates, has scored two transactions that suggest activity is experiencing an uptick.

One factor behind the deals is the improving fundamentals in the county and an extremely low unemployment rate, Ari Firoozabadi of Marcus & Millichap tells GlobeSt.com. “We are seeing considerable migration into Loudoun by the business community,” he says, “resulting in a mere 4.4% unemployment rate.” It is no accident that the deals are both in the multifamily sector, he adds. “A fortified employment sector correlates to a solid housing market, and with a transient and young population, there is, and will be, a continuous need for institutional quality rental housing.”

One transaction is the sale of Somerset Park, a 108-unit boutique luxury garden-style apartment community here, located at 600 Somerset Park Dr. Home Properties, a publicly traded apartment real estate trust, acquired the property for $20.2 million, or $187,500 per unit, from Arcadia Building Co. Transwestern's Mid-Atlantic Multifamily Group, led by co-directors Dean Sigmon and Robin Williams, represented the seller. The entire marketing process was completed in approximately ninety days, according to Sigmon.

In the second transaction, an affiliate of Crow Holdings Capital Partners secured $78.65 million in permanent financing for a 630-unit multifamily property in Ashburn. Mike Riccio, Susan Larkin and Maury Zanoff of CBRE Capital Markets in Washington, DC arranged the funding for the property, called Stoneridge. Freddie Mac provided the seven-year, fixed-rate loan.