Bigger in Texas: Enormous Austin Apartment Property Sells

By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor

Austin, Texas—In one of the larger apartment deals in recent memory in Austin, Hunt Investment Management LLC, an affiliate of Hunt Cos., has sold the master-planned Riata Town Center and Apartment Villages to IMT Capital LLC and affiliated company IMT Residential, both based in Los Angeles. The property in the Arboretum district of Austin includes 2,044 units on nearly 160 acres.

Both buyer and seller declined to specify a price, though considering the upscale nature of the property, it’s likely above the median unit price of about $61,000 that Marcus & Millichap reports for all of the Austin multifamily market. The deal might even be for more than the Class A median sales price in Austin of as much as $85,000 per unit.

In any case, the property is sizable. Completed 11 years ago and acquired by a Hunt-managed account in 2006, the complex contains 1,078 one-bedroom, 886 two-bedroom, and 80 three-bedroom units. The units are dispersed throughout two- and three-story garden-style buildings in eight different gated phases with three pricing tiers.

The focal point of Riata’s eight phases is the development’s town center, which features such amenities as a 4,250-square-foot resort-style pool with jacuzzi, fire pit, picnic grove and 11,000-square-foot fitness center. The overall property also features green space, a lake, jogging trails, beach volleyball courts, indoor racquetball courts, basketball courts, 200 gas grills, eight car wash stations, and two dog parks.

Thomas Delaney and John Musgrove, senior vice presidents of Hunt Investment Management, managed the sales process in conjunction with the seller’s agents, Charles Cirar and Ryan Reid of CBRE Texas. Mike Bryant and Jon Wooton, also with CBRE, facilitated permanent financing for the investment during Hunt’s ownership.