Abe Appert, first vice president in the Minneapolis office of CBRE Group, has been brokering multifamily property sales for nearly 19 years. The 41-year-old Cottage Grove native joined CBRE in 2008, and he's been involved in apartment transactions totaling approximately $1 billion. Before CBRE, he spent 13 years at Fransen Appert Real Estate Group.

Appert and his CBRE team — Keith Collins and Laura Hanneman — closed two large apartment sales on Oct. 15. They represented the sellers in both the $53 million sale of the Stoneleigh at the Reserve Apartments in Plymouth and the $37.25 million sale of the Lake Calhoun City Apartments in Minneapolis. Both transactions made headlines as the sale of Stoneleigh was the Twin Cities' largest apartment transaction in the past two years, and the sale of the Lake Calhoun City Apartments was the first Twin Cities urban, Class A apartment complex sold since 2008.

Appert has a family connection to the apartment business; his father, John Appert, was in the industry most of his career.

Q: The sales of Stoneleigh and Lake Calhoun City Apartments actually closed on the same day?

A: We're not sure that has ever happened in either of Keith's or my career, but yes, we had $90 million in closings in one day.

Q: Did you celebrate?

A: We were joking that in the investment sales business, the closings are kind of anticlimactic because everything is finished by that time, but we had a little toast that day.

Q: The Twin Cities apartment market continues to be robust, with developers building thousands of new units and investors aggressively pursuing existing complexes. How will 2013 end for local apartment sales?

A: We'll have a couple more closings before year-end. We've got four deals in the market right now. Promenade Oaks Apartments in Eagan should close next week, and we have a couple of other deals under contract. 2013 will be the first calendar year that will exceed [Twin Cities'] historical volume activity. Historical apartment sales activity is about $425 million a year — that's a 20-year stat. 2013 will be north of $500 million.

Q: What will 2014 look like for metro apartment sales?

A: I think we're going to average more in that $500 million range — that will be more of the velocity moving forward.

Liz Wolf is an Eagan-based freelance writer. She can be reached at wolfliz99@aol.com.