The multifamily sales market has been heating up across the D.C.-Baltimore region, with the latest deal coming in between the two cities in Howard County.

Continental Realty Corp. paid $86.5M for Dartmoor Place at Oxford Square, a 258-unit building developed in 2019, the Baltimore-based firm announced Friday.

The five-story building at 7200 Alden Way in Elkridge sits just off MD-295, less than 7 miles from Baltimore-Washington International Airport. It is part of the 122-acre Oxford Square master-planned community.

The building was 94% leased at the time of the sale, according to CRC. The units are 85% market-rate and 15% moderately priced dwelling units. Its amenities include a clubhouse, fitness center, children's play space, outdoor swimming pool, grilling area and a pet spa.

Towson-based Preston Scheffenacker Properties developed the building and sold it to CRC. CBRE Executive Vice President Mike Muldowney represented Preston in the sale.

The buyer is assuming the in-place debt on the property, a 35-year Department of Housing and Urban Development loan that has a 2.79% fixed interest rate, CRC said.

CRC acquired the property with its Core Multifamily Fund LP, which it closed in 2022 with $146M raised. The fund had also acquired three assets in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, and Hilton Head, South Carolina.

“After primarily targeting the southeast for our initial acquisitions for the Core Multifamily Fund, we turned our attention to CRC’s backyard in Maryland, which also offers compelling investment advantages driven by its location close to the Nation’s Capital, enduring job growth, deep labor pool, and high quality of life,” CRC CEO J.M. Schapiro said in a statement.

Multifamily investment sales have been picking back up this year in the region after interest rate hikes cooled the market in the previous two years. The combined D.C.-Baltimore region has $6.5B in 2024 multifamily sales as of this week, up from $4.2B all of last year, according to CBRE.

The Baltimore metro area's portion of that activity has picked up from $500M last year to $936M this year, but the region's biggest driver has been Northern Virginia, which has seen $3.6B in sales this year and has become a “shining star” in investors' eyes.