ARLINGTON, VA-UDR (NYSE: UDR) has closed on a luxury multifamily apartment building here with its JV partner, Kuwait Finance House. The 217-unit property, Twenty400, is trading for $84 million. The building was developed last year and is in the final stage of lease up.

The acquisition is well in line with UDR’s investment criteria, a spokesman for the REIT tells GlobeSt.com. “DC is one of our largest markets,” he said. In general, the REIT, headed by Tom Toomey, has been focusing on newer product in urban locations that are in higher income areas.

Twenty400 fits that criteria and has the added plus of being close to another UDR asset, thus providing the REIT management efficiencies, he says.

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UDR will continue to focus on the DC area, the spokesman adds, although the REIT’s guidance for the year suggests its acquisition spree is temporarily near an end. “The amount left for 2011 is very small,” he says. “We’ve invested more than $1 billion in New York alone.”

Just recently, UDR closed on the 14-story, 210-unit 21 Chelsea luxury apartment building from owner 21 Chelsea LLC for $138 million. It has also acquired the 706-unit, 35-story Rivergate apartment tower in Murray Hill in New York and entered into an agreement to acquire the Moinian Group’s luxury 507-unit Dwell95 tower at 95 Wall St. for $325 million.

In Washington, DC it recently acquired View 14, a 185-unit property for $104 million, and announced a joint venture to build a $62-million apartment complex comprising 256 units in College Park, MD.

The five-story Twenty400 property is less than a mile from the UDR’s 241-home apartment community, Delancey at Shirlington Village. The community is currently 91% occupied and has an average income per occupied home of $2,140 per month.

The transaction was funded via a new five-year, $49.5-million, interest-only loan at 3.39% from Fannie Mae, a 70% equity contribution by KFH of $24.15 million and a 30% equity contribution by UDR of $10.35 million.

The Arlington market is a good one for investment right now, especially for a foreign-based fund like KFH, Ari Firoozabadi of the Firoozabadi Group of Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment tells GlobeSt.com. “There are limited shovel ready development sites in Northern Virginia which will result in continued rent growth in the near term as population and demand outstrip delivery of quality housing,” he says.

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