Treeline sells Austin apartments after $20M appraisal jump

Even as bank woes and rising rates throw markets into turmoil, multifamily moves are happening in Austin.

A mystery buyer purchased Henley Riverside, a 368-unit apartment building in southeast Austin, from Denver-based investor Treeline Partners. The deal marks the property’s third sale since 2017, a span in which Austin multifamily has become one of the hottest asset classes in the country. Even as rent growth and investment sales have stalled in recent months, the deal shows that the city’s multifamily mania is not over. 

Henley Riverside opened in 2019 as Aura Riverside, a mid-rise, four-story building with one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. The property was developed by Trinsic Residential Group, which sold it the following year to Treeline. 

Under Treeline’s ownership, the property has become far more valuable, at least in the eyes of the tax assessor: While the sale price was not disclosed, the property’s appraised value jumped by $20 million to $102 million last year. Rents now range between $1,500 and $3,000 per month, according to Apartments.com. The building is 92 percent occupied.

Patton Jones and Andrew Dickson of Newmark  handled the sale. The buyer, who was not identified, has a “rapidly growing Austin portfolio,” Jones said.

The property sits on the edge of the East Riverside neighborhood, which currently has 28 listings with an average rent of $1,643, according to a report from RentCafe. That puts the neighborhood average slightly below the typical Austin rent of $1,825 per month. 

The city continues to see robust multifamily construction and demand. In the closing quarter of 2022, about 2,900 units were added to the market. All told, developers built nearly 15,000 new units across 2022. Multifamily building sales also prospered, with an average sale price of $254,276 per unit, up nearly 5 percent on the year.