Oklahoma City Apartment Property Seeks Buyer
Recently ARA was tasked to take the 708-unit Lincoln at Central Park apartment property in Oklahoma City to the investment market to look for a buyer, and has 'found interest from most every investor type.'
By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor
Oklahoma City—It’s well known that investors’ appetites for well-placed apartment properties have grown prodigiously in recent quarters as demand among renters rises without a corresponding rise in supply. But does that mean investors are digging ever deeper into markets they might have overlooked in previous years?
Atlanta-based ARA thinks they are. Recently the company was tasked to take the 708-unit Lincoln at Central Park apartment property in Oklahoma City to the investment market to look for a buyer. While no small town by any measure, the capital of Oklahoma hasn’t generally been on investors’ radar screens, focused as they have been on either coast and assorted large MSAs elsewhere.
That thinking among investors has gone by the wayside, according to ARA. “Based on initial feedback based on our marketing efforts thus far, we’re seeing interest from most every investor type,” Bart Wickard, an associate with ARA, tells MHN. “In addition to institutional interest and private REITs, we’ve seen private equity groups, high-net-worth individuals and family offices, as well local ownership, express their desire to own an asset like the Lincoln at Central Park.”
That seems to be the case even though Oklahoma City’s apartment market has been a little unusual in that its vacancy rate hasn’t changed recently, holding at 7.5 percent between the first and second quarters of 2011, according to Reis Inc. There has been some upward pressure on rents, however, with the market seeing an increase of 0.7 percent during 2Q11.
Built between 2007 and 2010, Lincoln at Central Park is in northeastern Oklahoma City, set on 50 acres fairly near I-44 and I-235. Units include a mix of one-, two- and three-bedrooms. Common amenities include two 24-hour fitness centers, two resort-style saltwater swimming pools, a cabana with outside kitchen and sand volleyball court. The property is currently 94 percent occupied.
