LRE, Greybrook Pay $160M for Two Apartment Portfolios
The largest share of the apartments are going to LRE.
LRE Management LLC and Greybrook have acquired two different apartment portfolios for a combined $160 million in Atlanta metro area.
The largest share comes from LRE, which paid $102.5 million for three properties, consisting of 778 units. The names of the apartment complexes are Eastwood Village in Stockbridge, Monterey Village in Jonesboro, and Peachtree Landing in Fairburn.
Greybrook paid $57.2 million for College Park properties Meadow Springs and Meadow View. Both combine for 456 apartment units.
In addition to acquisitions, LRE is focused on repositioning and renovating multifamily assets in the Midwest and Sunbelt markets. The investment firm has purchased more than $1 billion worth of properties, coming out to 6,600 units in 10 states.
And while Greybrook is based in Canada, it does have a major focus on the U.S. Across the nation, it maintains more than 70 million square feet of real estate, with a completion value estimated to exceed $38 billion.
For the most part, the multifamily asset class has been struggling. High supply has hindered rent growth and driven up vacancies.
However, some areas in the Sunbelt are seeing some favorable multifamily returns thanks to the region’s encouraging trends for population and job growth, according to a recent study from Altus Group. The leaders in order for returns are Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz, Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C, Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, Fla., Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla, and West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, Fla.
CBRE facilitated the deals for Greybrook and LRE on the Atlanta portfolio.
“While many institutions are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, savvy entrepreneurial investors with plenty of capital to deploy are making good investments today,” said Kevin Geiger, vice chairman with CBRE in Atlanta.
“Both LRE and Greybrook will be rewarded in the near term as rents and occupancies rebound in a relatively short period of time. Most everyone in the multi-housing industry has acknowledged that there will be a shortage of housing over the next five years – and certainly, the new owners of these five properties are going to experience great value appreciation.”
Meanwhile, Atlanta is studying how to make housing more affordable in the region.