Seattle-Area Apartments Sell to Spokane Tribe of Indians

The Spokane Tribe of Indians’ Seattle-area real estate holdings are growing.

The Native American group’s Spokane Indian Housing Authority purchased the 200-unit Waterford Apartments at 2020 Lake Heights Drive in Everett, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported. The deal, valued at $53.3 million, is the city’s biggest multifamily sale this year, according to Newmark. The price works out to $266,500 per apartment.

The Wellpinit-based housing authority has been on a buying spree in the Seattle area over the past year, buying at least five multifamily properties, over 1,200 units in King and Snohomish Counties. The organization bought a 179-unit complex in Tukwila a year ago for $28.3 million. The following month, it picked up a 570-unit market-rate community in Mill Creek for $164.8 million with plans to convert it into income-restricted affordable housing. Acquisitions in Kent and Burien followed at $23 million and $37.5 million, respectively.

Waterford Apartments last sold in October 2016 to an Investment Property Group affiliate for $43.2 million. The roughly 1.2-acre property was built in 1989, and the units underwent renovations in 2014. The complex’s amenities include indoor and outdoor pools, a fitness center, a dog park and a sauna and spa. The $53.3 million sale is the largest in Everett in the past year, Newmark’s Marty Leith, who represented the seller, said of the deal.

Everett has some of the strongest short- and long-term rent growth in the Seattle region as few new multifamily properties are delivered and renter demand remains steady, Leith said. The occupancy rate in the city was at 94.9 percent in the first quarter, according to Colliers. Seattle’s occupancy rate was slightly lower at 94.2 percent. While 524 new multifamily units were completed in Seattle in the first quarter, zero were completed in Everett.

— Chris Malone Méndez