GMC Properties paid $10.7 million for Doral Oaks, or almost twice as much as the 252-unit Temple Terrace complex traded for in 2001.

"This was not a distress sale,” said Byron Moger, executive director of apartment brokerage services at Cushman & Wakefield Inc.

GMC Properties, which has offices in Jacksonville and Charlotte, N.C., paid $42,460 a unit to Apartment Investment and Management Co., a public real estate investment trust based in Denver. The deal closed Aug. 4.

"I think AIMCO got a good deal in this market,” Moger said. GMC Properties, a private family business, is expected to upgrade the property, built in 1967, and increase rents to enhance its investment, he said.

AIMCO (NYSE: AIV), one of the largest apartment REITS in the nation with about a dozen communities in the Tampa Bay area, has been selling older properties to shore up its cash position in anticipation of maturing loans.

GMC Properties obtained an $8.56 million loan at 80 percent loan-to-value from Capmark Bank.

The deal is a sign that investor confidence is returning, said Moger, who expects an uptick in multifamily investment activity through yearend.

In the first half of the year, only 15 apartment complexes were traded throughout all of Florida, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Many of those sales were by distressed sellers.

In the Doral Oaks deal, Moger and Luis Elorza, also of Cushman & Wakefield, represented AIMCO.