Austin’s Rastegar Rakes in Cash in Two Property Deals

Real estate investor and possibly unsung wunderkind Ari Rastegar inked two deals for Austin commercial properties, raking in more than $6 million for the sites.

His firm, Rastegar Property Company, sold Lamar Oaks apartments at 8071 North Lamar Boulevard in Northeast Austin’s Georgian Acres in an off-market deal for $4.8 million — about $160,000 per unit. The multifamily property has 30 one- and two-bedroom apartments ranging from 575 to 875 square feet and sits on two-thirds of an acre in Northeast Austin.

The property needed “significant renovations” when the company bought it in 2020, Rastegar said. Converting it to a Class A multifamily asset and increasing rent enabled the firm “to capitalize on the growing Austin rental market,” he added.

The company also sold a retail property at 6607 N. I-35 for about $2.9 million, or $508 per square foot. The 5,706-square-foot building is on 1.2 acres near a handful of large chain restaurants and hotels — including the DoubleTree by Hilton Austin that Dallas firm Mohr recently bought and with plans for a $11 million renovation.

Rastegar purchased the retail property in 2019. Its restaurant tenant went bankrupt shortly after the sale, Rastegar said. The company renovated, repositioned the property and signed a new, 10-year lease with Austin’s Gabrielas restaurant group.

Rastegar Property has a portfolio spanning more than a dozen states and over 3.5 million square feet, most of it concentrated in the Sun Belt. It recently announced its 809 Skyline office development project in Austin. It’s also developing a 318-acre planned community in nearby Kyle and is also working on a 550,000-square-foot industrial project near both the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and Tesla’s electric vehicle manufacturing facility in eastern Travis County.

“Both properties were non-core assets that were sold with profitability” to “”very sophisticated real estate investors,” Rastegar said of the two recent sales. The company did not reveal the buyers due to nondisclosure agreements.