An affiliate of Berkshire Group is expected to buy a six-property portfolio of high-end apartments from Crescent Communities in the Southeast for an undisclosed sum.

Crescent VP Jay Curran (here with his sons) says it was a good time to sell the properties, including the 355-unit Crescent Terminus and the 256-unit Crescent Howell Mill, while “there's a wind at our back.” Despite the influx of new product coming to market, Jay says Crescent still sees Buckhead as a growth story, and the firm is looking for other land plays to redeploy capital. The Crescent portfolio also included six properties in North Carolina and two in Florida. Berkshire is under contract for six of them; three others are expected to sell elsewhere.

On the other end of this transaction is Berkshire managing director Eric Draeger: “It's hard to pass up that location in Buckhead.” Indeed, Crescent Terminus is sandwiched inside the Terminus mixed-use development at the corner of Piedmont and Peachtree (Main and Main in Atlanta). And it's achieving $2.20/SF rents--some of the highest in the metro area. Earlier this year, Berkshire purchased The EON at Lindbergh apartment community, and it's still shopping for multifamily in the Southeast.

In light of the Crescent Terminus (here) sale, we spoke with Haddow & Associates' Ladson Haddow on the bet investors and developers are making on the Atlanta multifamily market. And so far, the news is good. According to its latest report, 97.8% of the existing 25,800 units of inventory is leased at an average rate of $1.63/SF. The newer the project, the better the stats. Of the nearly 3,000 newer units (delivered since 2010), occupancy is 98.2% with an average rent of just over $2/SF. Currently, there are 7,300 units underway in Atlanta's CBD, with another 13,000 planned.