In the decade Madison Commercial Properties' Greg Johnson has been tracking apartment sales, prices for Denver multifamily have never been this steep for investors. The biggest beneficiary: Small apartment complexes. (Finally some love for the little guy.)

"The Denver market has exploded," Greg (left, with his partner Kyle Malnati) told us. From 2001 to 2011, the average price per apartment unit climbed from $61k to $70k, a healthy rise. In 2012, the average price skyrocketed to $94k (specifically apartment buildings of 100 units or fewer). What's driving it: a perfect storm of investor demand, low vacancies, rising rents, and an overall lack of product for sale. (A storm like this means it's rainin' cash.) Vacancies haven't been this low since before the dot-com bust, he says.

[caption id="attachment_50749" align="alignnone" ] Source: CoStar[/caption]

Greg's most recent sale was aseven-unit studio apartment complexnear the University of Denver that sold to private investorsfor $1.3M, or $185k/unit. And its not anoutlier: Two others Greg has under contract will fetchrecord pricing if the deals close: a 10-unit building for $100k/unit and a 12-unit building for $137k/unit."Those are numbers that would have seemed certainlyunachievable near crazy12 months ago," he says.So, is multifamily too hot in Denver? Greg doesn't believe there's a bubble, but concedes that the level of new construction runs the risk of outstripping demand11,000 new units, mostly high rent, are under way in Denver and another 16,000 are on the drawing board (11,000 units were absorbed from 2010 to 2012).