Invesco’s Multifamily Sale in Bethesda Shows Market Shift

Eight years ago, Invesco Real Estate set a Maryland multifamily record with its acquisition of Flats 8300 in Bethesda. Last month, it sold the property at a significant discount.

AIR Communities have now picked up the property at 8300 Wisconsin Avenue for $129.8 million, Bisnow reported. The sale appeared in Montgomery County property records before Denver-based AIR announced the acquisition on LinkedIn last week.

The deal for the 359-unit property breaks down to a little less than $362,000 per unit. Neither of the sides in the deal commented further on the transaction to Bisnow.

The property has a 50,000-square-foot grocery store at its base, as well as a Starbucks. Residential amenities include rooftop lap and wading pools, a business center, a pet spa and coworking spaces. Monthly rent is anywhere between $2,201 and $7,372, according to Apartments.com.

The complex was developed by a joint venture of StonebridgeCarras and Walton Street Capital. The partners sold it to Invesco shortly after completion in 2016 for $207 million, the most expensive multifamily sale in Maryland’s history at the time.

The latest sale by Invesco, however, is a 37 percent discount from the previous trade. It’s unclear why Invesco unloaded the property at such a discount, though high interest rates have dragged down commercial property values across the country.

The multifamily market isn’t the only sector where sellers are bleeding in Bethesda.

Several months ago, Stonebridge and Rockwood Capital sold an office property at 7500 Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda, Maryland to In-Rel Properties for $29.9 million, a 78 percent drop from 2019.

AIR also acquired a 456-unit multifamily property in Bethesda in August, spending $220 million to buy The Elm from Carr Properties. Blackstone recently agreed to acquire AIR for $10 billion, which would represent Blackstone’s largest ever acquisition in the sector.

Invesco sold another significant multifamily property at a sizable discount last year when it unloaded a 400-unit building in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood for $173 million. Invesco had acquired the building in 2016 for $240.3 million in 2016.

— Holden Walter-Warner