Affordable Housing Gets Push with Argent Trade 

SILVER SPRING, MD-The sale of the Argent, a 96-unit 91,483-square-foot mid-rise apartment complex at 1200 Blair Mill Rd. here is a win for affordable housing advocates in this submarket. Blair Mill Affordable Associates LLC, an affiliate of Pallas Properties LLC and Paradigm Financial Consulting of Park City, UT, purchased the property from another LLC for $24.8 million. 

Under the new ownership, the property will be designated affordable housing, with 90% of the units set aside for qualifying families whose income does not exceed 60% of the area median income and 10% of the units at the property set aside for qualifying families whose income does not exceed 50% of the area median income.

Bill Roohan, Mike Muldowney, Andrew Boyer, Michael Rudolph, Jonathan Greenberg, Brian Margerum and Martha Hastings of CB Richard Ellis’ Washington DC Multi-Housing Investment Properties team brokered the transaction. The $24.8 million price was a competitive offer, Muldowney tells GlobeSt.com. "We had 43 offers and did 60 tours,” he relates. “It’s a further indication of how attractive multifamily properties are to investors in the DC area. 

The Argent was originally built as for-sale condominiums, but the owner was unable to sell any units. Chicago-based Corus Bank--which was eventually taken over by the FDIC in September of 2009--provided the construction financing. A partnership between the FDIC and a private equity consortium led by Starwood Capital Group took over the loan and facilitated the sale. It was purchased with tax exempt municipal bonds and equity provided by Bank of America Merrill Lynch through the purchase of Federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits.