AUSTIN-After two years eyeing potential deals, Carroll Organization landed its first Austin area buy, adding the 256-unit Archstone Tech Ridge Apartments to its fast-growing Texas portfolio. The multifamily property will be rebranded ARIUM Tech Ridge, with the Atlanta buyer putting its own management team into place.

"Pricing has gotten very aggressive in Austin," comments M. Pat Carroll, Carroll Organization's founder and CEO. "We've chased a lot, but this is the first deal in which we felt as though we were getting a good price and some upside potential." Carroll tells GlobeSt.com the asset wasn't on the market, but rather, was a direct, off-market deal between the buyer and the seller, which operated under the entity name BP Tech Ridge LP of Englewood, CO.

Unlike other buys Carroll Organization has closed within the past several months, this 95%-occupied multifamily property at 305 E. Yager Lane won't require much in the way of upgrades. The property was, in fact, finished in late 2010 when Archstone and Bluerock Real Estate LLC formed a joint venture to complete it after the original developer went into bankruptcy.

"We saw an opportunity to buy this at an attractive basis," Carroll explains. "We're not doing a lot of value-add; we're putting our management team in. But we were drawn to the high-growth corridor and we saw the opportunity to make a good buy." The transaction's sales price was undisclosed, though the Travis Central Appraisal District assesses the multifamily property at $18.4 million.

During the past 14 months, Carroll Organization has been busy in Texas, acquiring the 267-unit Waterford Place in Humble, TX; the 467-unit Renaissance Village at Briar Forest in Houston and the 360-unit Carroll at Shadow Creek Ranch in Pearland, TX. Carroll says he likes Texas a lot, and acknowledges he has an appetite for more multifamily acquisitions in the Lone Star State. He goes on to say he's like to supplement his company's portfolio with properties in Dallas and Austin.