LOS ANGELES—TruAmerica Multifamily, a real estate investment firm launched last year by Robert E. Hart and the Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America, has reached $293 million in property values and is on track to accomplish its 2015 goal of $1 billion in property values. The announcement comes after the firm completed two new acquisitions in Denver, CO, and Seattle, WA, totaling $82 million.

“We are well on our way to becoming a billion-dollar company,” Hart, TruAmerica Multifamily's CEO and founder, tells GlobeSt.com. “We closed a couple hundred million in deals and we have more coming. Right now, we have a heavy concentration of deals in the Seattle-metro area and the Denver-metro area.” In total, the firm has acquired six multifamily properties since launching in July 2013 with three acquisitions in California and the other three in the Seattle and Denver areas.

Located in Denver, Tamarac Village is the larger of the two properties in the latest acquisition with 564 units. TruAmerica purchased it for $55 million. The Seattle property, Westhaven Apartments, has 190 units, and the investment firm purchased it for $27 million. “Today's acquisitions of Tamarac Village Apartments and Westhaven Apartments serve as a prime example of our investment strategy to target high-quality, value-add workforce housingassets,” says Hart, who plans to continue targeting multifamily properties in West Coast markets.

The company made its first two purchases in October 2013 on properties located in Oceanside, CA, and San Jose, CA. Those purchases totaled $119 million. Then in December 2013, the firm closed on another two properties: a 170-unit apartment complex in Gilroy, CA, and a 309-unit complex in Federal Way, WA. “In 2014, TruAmerica will continue to build on the momentum that we established in our initial months by targeting high-growth metropolitan regions throughout the Western United States,” he explains.

Hart is committed to multifamily because he believes urban areas are undergoing a true change in tenancy. In today's urban multifamily market, “a wide range of demographics actively seek apartment living as an alternative to single-family homes,” according to Hart. He adds, “We are building a cross-section of multifamily properties in the value-add space over the next two-and-a-half years to capitalize on this change.”