Investors are going to be looking for Charlotte-area apartment properties with the same intensity this year as last, Multi Housing Advisors senior director JordanMcCarley tells us; but now, they're willing to take a chance on value-adds.

With capital exhibiting greater risk tolerance, investors are considering value-add deals they wouldnt have touched even 18 months ago, Jordan says. The conditions are ripe: the economy has recovered enough to create more jobs, which will create more demand for apartments, while supply still hasnt caught up, and definitely wont this year. Finding a property that needs a bit of work in return for higher rents seems like a good bet.

Other factors will continue to drive multifamily deal volume, Jordan adds: There are profit-takers at work in the market now looking to sell--that is, investors who bought in '08 and 09 and are now interested in reaping the benefits of their timely buying, and there are developers now looking to sell properties they had the good timing to complete just before the recession. (They always say real estate is about location, location, location, timing, location.) Recently Jordan and his colleague Marc Robinson repped one such developer-seller, Meridia, who developed the 216-unit Enclave at Rivergate in Charlotte and sold it to a California investor for $24.8M.