Houston, Texas real estate development, home buying, landscape, and design

When it was shopped around to investors last year, there weren’t too many offers for the Retreat at Cypress Station, a 296-unit apartment complex on an 18-acre site north of FM1960 near I-45. How come?

Hendricks & Partners’ principal Jim A. Hearn says the two-year-old asset at 18200 Westfield Place Dr., assessed at $22.7 million by Harris County, was on the market with another brokerage firm about one year ago, but was pulled due to lack of buyer interest. “By luck, this property was in lease-up during Hurricanes Rita and Katrina and the owners took on a significant number of corporate leases,” Hearn explains. As the corporate leases ran out, he says vacancies went up. “Some of the buyers were spooked,” he says.

What would happen when all those Katrina-era leases expired? Boo!

Apparently, some residents were spooked as well—by local crime. Back in January, an anonymous resident posted this gem about the complex to the Apartment Ratings website:

The shooting that occured on Wednesday was due to a damn drug deal.. If I understand correctly, the resident will NO longer be living here… BE SMART, take your damn valuables out of your vehicle and keep an eye out for your neighbors… This is a very good property for the area, yes you pay for it… It is worth it…

Well, now only 20 percent of the apartments are vacant. And the complex has just been bought by a fund managed by Boston’s TA Realty Advisors—even before Allied Realty Services, the company that built it, was able to put it back on the market.

• TA Fund Wins 296 Units With Pre-Emptive Move [Globe St.]
• The Retreat at Cypress Station: Shooting and Car Break Ins [Apartment Ratings]