Harbor Group International Buys Denver Apartments for $132M
It’s a sign of investors’ growing multifamily appetite despite lots of new inventory
By Tom Acitelli February 8, 2024 9:00 am
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A nine-figure deal in the Denver area highlights the U.S. multifamily market’s strengthening appeal for investors.
Affiliates of the privately held commercial real estate owner, lender and developer Harbor Group International (HGI) have bought two recently built Denver apartment complexes for $132.5 million, Commercial Observer has learned. They represent HGI’s ninth and 10th multifamily purchases in the Denver area, and its first of any asset class nationally in 2024. The Norfolk, Va.-based company bought 13 multifamily properties in 2023, spending $891.5 million total.
The Denver purchases come amid a shifting multifamily market nationally and locally. Nationally, what had appeared to be uncertainty over financing for deal activity has evened out in recent months. Cap rate data shows buyers and sellers are coming to a post-pandemic consensus over what apartment assets are worth, according to data from brokerage CBRE.
Separately, data from CBRE and elsewhere show that new construction that had tempered rent growth a bit was starting to level off. More apartments hit the Denver market in the third quarter of 2023, for instance, which is more than in any single quarter before, according to CBRE. But the same figures revealed that the volume of new construction likely represented a peak for the Colorado capital.
More units will come online in Denver — 5,198 dropped in the fourth quarter, per CBRE — but then that new supply will drop off. And, like elsewhere in the country, demand will once again start to markedly outpace supply, favoring landlords such as HGI.
Also favoring landlords: mortgage rates that remain roughly twice as high as they were only two years ago and institutional buyers snapping up dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of homes at a time to rent out. The twin trends put home ownership out of reach for many who then must compete for rentals.
“I will tell you, if you speak to most multifamily experts, most will predict we’re going to see very, very strong multifamily fundamentals starting in, let’s say, the second half of 2025 going into 2026 as the new construction deliveries get absorbed,” Jordan Slone, HGI’s chairman and CEO, told Commercial Observer in a December interview unrelated to the Denver deals.
As for those Denver deals, they included the 238-unit Prospector Modern in the city’s Castle Rock suburb. The apartment complex was 86.1 percent occupied as of 2024, according to HGI. The complex is about a 25-minute drive from the Denver Tech Center, a major business hub for Colorado and a reason why HGI says it bought the place. Available one-bedrooms start at $1,855 a month.
The other property is in Denver proper. The Ladora Modern, a 10-minute drive from Denver’s airport, has 196 apartments, 84.7 percent of which were occupied as of 2024. Available one-bedrooms start at $1,795 a month. Denver’s average effective rent — rent minus sweeteners such as free months — was $1,902 in the fourth quarter, according to CBRE.
Both the Prospector and the Ladora come with the amenities that tenants in higher-end apartments have come to expect: in-unit washer-dryers, pet spas, fitness centers, pools and even garages in some cases.
A Denver-based CBRE multifamily team of Terrance Hunt, Shane Ozment, Andy Hellman and Justin Hunt represented the complexes’ seller, which appears to be developer the Garrett Companies. The acquisition financing was also arranged by a CBRE team, according to HGI: Shawn Rosenthal, Jason Gaccione and Jake Salkovitz in New York, and Brady O’Donnell and Jill Haug in Denver.
The Garrett Companies did not return a request for comment, and HGI declined to provide the seller’s name.
Tom Acitelli can be reached at tacitelli@commercialobserver.com.
