Suburban Tampa apartments sell for price previously only seen in the urban core
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Mar 28, 2022

A newly built suburban apartment complex near Tampa has sold for a price-per-unit previously only seen in the Tampa Bay area's most exclusive buildings.

Atlanta-based Cortland paid $119.8 million or $405,000 per apartment for the 296-unit Santos Flats, which has been renamed Cortland Santos Flats. The seller was Birmingham, Alabama-based LIV Development, according to Hillsborough County property records. Brighthouse Life Insurance Co. provided a $65 million mortgage, according to property records.

Both LIV and Cortland own properties throughout the Tampa Bay region.

Market-rate apartments in the Tampa Bay area sold for more than $400,000 per apartment for the first time ever in 2019, when 500 Harbour Island sold for more than $440,000 per unit. Channel Club in downtown Tampa's Channel district sold for $419,753 per apartment in late 2021; Camden Central in downtown St. Petersburg sold for $479,076 per apartment in summer 2021.

But those properties are markedly different from Santos Flats, which consists of two elevator-serviced, four-story buildings and five two-story carriage house buildings. It is situated off Causeway Boulevard between Tampa and Brandon in unincorporated Hillsborough County. The other buildings that have crossed the $400,000 per apartment threshold are high rises in affluent urban neighborhoods with a host of walkable amenities.

When market-rate apartment buildings are sold, rent increases are almost certainly on deck. Investors base their offers on their projections of rent hikes. Rents in the Tampa Bay market have spiked to never-before-seen highs, with households here spending more of their income on rent than those in San Francisco or Boston. With a post-pandemic explosion of new residents driving demand and rental rates, both Tampa and St. Petersburg are staring down an affordable housing crisis.

Rents at Santos Flats start at $1,870 a month for a one-bedroom, according to Apartments.com.