Lennar has agreed to acquire or option the properties from Starwood over the next two years, according to an announcement Friday by the major US homebuilder. Financial details were not released, though Lennar disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing a week earlier that it projects gross margins of more than 20% from the deal.
The single-family sites are located in first-time homebuyer, master planned, active adult and premier golf course communities in Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville and Southeast Florida. Lennar plans to build single-family homes, townhomes and garden villas priced from the low $100,000s.
"We view this deal as a major step forward for Lennar's growth in Florida," Fred Rothman, Lennar regional president, stated in a release. "These new communities will complement our existing operations."
Starwood is a residential real estate, development and investment firm focused on land acquisition, development and financing nationwide. The firm, an affiliate of Greenwich, CT-based Starwood Capital Group Global, often seeks to become the capital partner of national developers, according to the company's Web site.
In early January, a group of investors led by Starwood Capital Group and private equity firm TPG, formerly Texas Pacific Group, beat out seven rivals to purchase Chicago-based Corus Bank's $5 billion condo portfolio with a combined bid of nearly $2.8 billion. Corus had financed several major condominiums in South Florida, including Ivy, Paramount Bay and Jade Ocean in Miami-Dade County and Trump International Hotel and Tower in Broward County. Starwood now owns those loans.
Lennar has been busy in February, having made a $243-million deal with the FDIC earlier this month to acquire at least $3 billion worth of distressed loan portfolios, including some commercial real estate. It also terminated its $1.1-billion senior unsecured revolving credit facility with a group of lenders led by JPMorgan Chase Bank, saying it can save $8 million annually arranging its own letters of credit.
(Information from ALM's Daily Business Review was used in this story.)
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