Post Properties Asking $34 Mil for Two Tampa Area Apartment Assets

TAMPA, FL-Post Properties Inc. of Atlanta may be hitting the Tampa apartment market at the right time in December when it places two of its top-leased assets on the selling block for a combined asking price of $34.25 million or an average per-unit price of $62,047.

If the assets sold in that range, the per-unit prices would be among the highest logged in the Tampa Bay market in the past two years, according to that area’s most recent multifamily assessment by Marcus & Millichap. Class A and B properties were averaging $44,315 per unit in the early part of this year.

“The Tampa market experienced a 20% increase in average unit prices over the last three years, as investors focused more on class A and B properties,” Steven M. Ekovich, Marcus & Millichap’s vice president/regional manager for Florida, tells GlobeSt.com. “This trend reversed during the first quarter of this year with the majority of sales in the first 90 days comprising class C properties.”

Ekovich says sales activity in the Tampa market, 80 miles west of Downtown Orlando, has remained “fairly steady over the last few years, with an average of approximately 100 transactions annually across the market.”

The Central Pinellas county submarket was “by far the most active area in Tampa last year, accounting for one out of every four sales in the MSA,” Ekovich tells GlobeSt.com.

According to Real Estate Finance and Investment, a New York-based weekly real estate industry newsletter, Post values its 312-unit, 13-year-old, 96%-leased Post Bay apartments in St. Petersburg, FL at $18.25 million or $58,494 per unit. The REIT is asking $16 million or $70,175 per unit for its 240-unit, 10-year-old, 95%-leased Post Court apartments in nearby Clearwater, FL.

Real Estate Finance and Investment notes the leveraged cash-on-cash yield for the Post Bay complex would be about 11.21% and the leveraged internal rate of return would be 23.77%. For Post Court apartments, the cash-on-cash yield could be 10.92% with an IRR of 23.7%.

CB Richard Ellis Inc. is marketing the properties either as a package or separately. Post is following a year-long strategy of selling off older assets and using the proceeds to invest in newer properties, according to the company’s previously reported disclosures.