Multifamily Investment Sales Heat Up in South Florida

Higher for longer interest rates, the withdrawal of traditional lenders and the waning of a two-year surge in rent growth don’t appear to be dampening interest in multifamily trades in South Florida.

In fact, the arrival of summer has seen an uptick in multifamily investment sales activity in the market.

A bevy of recent transactions in South Florida includes Chicago-based Mesirow’s purchase for $89M of The Retreat at Sawgrass Village, a 325-unit apartment complex near the Sawgrass Mills mall in Sunrise.

The Retreat, which includes a five-story building and three one-story buildings at 3001 Northwest 130th Terrace, was sold by AMLI Residential. The acquisition was financed with a $71M loan from Equitable Financial Life Insurance Co.

NY-based Pantzer Properties paid $139M last month to acquire AMLI Doral, a 6.4-acre garden-apartment complex at 11481 Northwest 41st Street in Doral. JLL Real Estate Capital provided Pantzer with an $87.6M mortgage for the property, which will be renamed The Point at Lakeside, according to a press release.

Brookfield Properties has purchased the 444-unit Turtle Cove apartment complex in unincorporated Palm Beach County for $107.5M from Miami Beach-based Starwood Capital Group, according to real estate database Vizzda.

Located at 825 Cotton Bay Drive East near West Palm Beach, Turtle Cove encompasses 28 two-story apartment buildings and four one-story clubhouse buildings on a 27.7-acre site.

In the top multifamily deal in South Florida so far this year, Los Angeles-based Ares Management paid $139.7M—about $492K per unit—in May for Ceru, an eight-story apartment campus encompassing 284 units. Ceru, located at 5205 Congress Avenue in Boca Raton, was sold by Fort Lauderdale-based Mainstreet Capital Partners.

With regional banks pulling back from financing multifamily trades, buyers are relying on insurance companies, debt funds or their own capital resources to finance deals. Ares Management has a market cap estimated at $45B and AUM of about $428B.

In Zumper’s latest National Rent Report, released last month, Miami and Tampa recorded negative rent growth of minus 2.1% and minus 1.8%, in a year-over-year comparison.

New supply has been flooding into Florida in 2024. Of all U.S. subregions, Florida has had the third-largest multifamily inventory growth this year, with 66K new rental units delivered at the end of the first quarter.

In the past two years, Miami has led the nation in rent growth, the report said, noting that the recent decline in rents would have been more pronounced if it had not been offset by “massive” housing demand in Florida.