Perspective Please, People

Don't get too carried away by the record-low cap rate (3.4%) in last week's unique 77 Roehampton Ave multi-rez deal, according to Colliers International VP Michael Betsalel, who brokered the deal with partnerEarl Kufner. Q-Residential picked up the 81-unit building for $20.5M. (Don't go buying that new sports car just yet.)

The market is really aggressive;we see sub-five caps all over the place, Michael, right, tells us. But this was really a cherry deal. A nicelocation certainly helped--Yonge and Eglinton, among the hottest rental areas in Canada.Give the Colliers people credit--a key in any of these deals is finding untapped value. As Michael adds, one needs to jump in and list a property properly (put up some balloons to spruce it up), instead of just a property hand-off from vendor to buyer. In this case, where there was tenant turnover, the owner was just flipping the units over again for $1,100 to $1,200, instead of improving the unit and getting $1,500 to $1,600.

The building is full, but they never maximized value, he says. Opportunities are in turnover, as well as in better building efficiencies, to gain more on the bottom line. Many offers on the building came in, over a wide range, up to a 30% swing from top to bottom, so the vendor is over the moon that it went for $20.5M (plus around $600k in upgrade costs the buyer has to absorb). But its still important to put things in perspective, when matching this deal against market trends in multi-rez, says Michael. Four and 3.5 caps, these are not what you normally see.