Real estate firms buy Waterford at Cypress Lake

BUYER: Waterford Investors LLC (Buccaneer Realty LLC), Portland, Maine

SELLER: TWC Eighty LP

PROPERTY: 4733 W. Waters Ave., Tampa

PRICE: $20 million

PREVIOUS PRICE: $900,000, November 1993

LAW FIRM ON DEED: Broad and Cassel, Orlando

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: A joint venture of real estate firms in Maine and in Montana purchased a 450-unit apartment complex for $20 million.

The price equated to $44,444 per unit.

The six-year-old, three-story apartment complex, Waterford at Cypress Lake, was built through housing tax credits and is income restricted. The 19-acre community features 98 one-bedroom, 292 two-bedroom and 60 three-bedroom apartments.

Casey Babb of Marcus & Millichap's Tampa office and Marcus & Millichap's Seattle-based Tax Credit Group handled the transaction.

The property was in excellent shape, according to Babb, and the roofs of the complex have recently been replaced. Its occupancy generally runs between 98% and 96%.

Both of the joint venture real estate investment firms that bought Waterford are focused on buying and operating subsidized multifamily housing complexes.

The older of the two, Portland, Maine-based Wishcamper Cos., has an ownership interest in 5,400 units in 13 states. Rick Wishcamper, son of the president of The Wishcamper Cos., owns Missoula, Mont.-based Rocky Mountain Development Group with business partner Justin Metcalf. The two companies together manage 10,000 units.

“This is our first entry to into the Florida market,” Metcalf says. “It was the right size, at 450 units, to make sense with all the travel.”

The ownership group retained the existing property management firm, the Tampa-based Wilson Co., to run the complex.

The joint venture, Waterford Investors LLC, mortgaged the property to Oak Grove Commercial Mortgage LLC for $16.42 million.