Walker & Dunlop arranged a $176 million credit facility for seven single-family rental communities in various neighborhoods within the Atlanta, Georgia, MSA.

The Walker & Dunlop New York Capital Markets team, led by Jonathan Schwartz, Aaron Appel, Keith Kurland, Adam Schwartz, Michael Ianno, Jackson Irwin, and Christopher de Raet, arranged the financing on behalf of institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Brookfield Asset Management’s Real Estate Credit group provided the financing. 

The portfolio consists of 709 homes totaling 1.4 million rentable square feet across seven different communities, all situated within a 30- to 55-mile drive from Atlanta’s central business district. Located in Atlanta’s most sought-after suburbs, including McDonough, Loganville, Cartersville, Hoschton, Dallas, and Jefferson, the portfolio features a mix of 3-, 4-, and 5-bedroom homes with a variety of amenities.

Holladay Ventures and Evergreen Real Estate opened Shelby House, a 195-unit affordable housing community. Additionally, Holladay and Evergreen announced the groundbreaking of the project’s second phase, 4th & Shelby, a mixed-use development adjacent to Shelby House, which will bring an additional 289 units of affordable housing in 2026. In total, both projects will provide 484 affordable housing units to the Nashville community.

Phase two of the project will feature energy-efficient appliances and solar panels. Apartments at the two locations are reserved for families earning between 30 and 80% of the Area Median Income.

Samaritan Recovery Community(SRC) partnered with Holladay Ventures and Evergreen Real Estate. PNC Bank also participated in the project.

Holladay says it specializes in developing workforce, affordable, and mixed-income housing solutions that are not only intentionally designed but also positively impact local residents and the environment. 

National multifamily developer Wood Partners will expand its presence in Charlotte with Alta 10th and Seigle and Altera Mint Hill, bringing its total to 16 developments in the city and 30 in the state. These new multifamily properties will bring more than 550 units to one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.

The 252-unit Altera Mint Hill broke ground earlier this month and is set to be delivered in the first quarter of 2026. Wood says the one, two and three-bedroom units will have “cost-effective” rates. The apartment community includes a fitness center, clubhouse, coffee bar, pool courtyard, outdoor grill station and lounge area.

Alta 10^th and Seigle will include 302 units, including a mix of studios, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartment layouts. Its amenities include a rooftop lounge and sky terrace, fitness studio, private micro-offices, a saltwater pool and sun deck. Alta 10th and Seigle broke ground in April 2024, with the first units expected to be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Koelsch Communities announced the early success of the largest campus in its portfolio – University Village – in Vancouver, Washington. Additionally, construction on its newest communities located in Bellevue nears completion, with an anticipated opening in Summer 2024.

Koelsch Construction was the general contractor for both developments, with Shearer Construction as a partner on the Belle Harbour project. The interior design of both campuses was managed by Judy Koelsch and JSK Design.

The $112 million University Village development encompasses 13 acres and features 136 suites in its independent living community, The Park at University Village, and 101 suites in its assisted living community, The Inn at University Village. Additionally, The Park has 26 cottages comprised of one-, two- and three-bedroom homes.

More than 160 miles north of Vancouver in Bellevue, construction nears completion on the $93 million Belle Harbour project, home to The Park at Belle Harbour, an assisted living community, and The Inn at Belle Harbour, a dedicated memory care community. Spanning nearly three acres, the boutique campus features 145 suites across both buildings.

Crescent Communities’ Harmon Foxbank build-to-rent neighborhood on the outskirts of Charleston, South Carolina.

A major Southeast commercial real estate developer is teaming up with Chicago-based investment management firm Heitman to spearhead more than $200M in new single-family build-to-rent homes across four states.

Charlotte-based Crescent Communities and Heitman, along with an unnamed state pension fund, plan to start construction this spring on Harmon by Crescent Communities rental neighborhoods in North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and Arizona, the company announced Thursday. 

The initial $235M investment will erect new three- and four-bedroom townhouses and single-family detached home communities full of amenities that will be offered for rent only, according to the press release.

“The expanding relationship with Heitman during a very challenging capital markets environment is a testament to this growing sector and the confidence in our brand,” Crescent Senior Managing Director Tony Chen said in the release.

Crescent is known for its Novel apartment brand and also develops and owns office, industrial and life sciences real estate. It first entered the build-to-rent category three years ago when it teamed up with Sumitomo Forestry’s DRB Group as its builder, with plans for communities in Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh and Charleston.

The Heitman partnership comes as build-to-rent is hitting a new peak. Developers unleashed 27,500 for-rent houses in 2023, 75% more than 2022, according to data compiled by RentCafe. More than 45,000 build-to-rent homes are underway in the U.S., with the bulk projected to deliver in 2025. Phoenix has the biggest pipeline with 4,000 units, followed by Dallas and Atlanta.

The industry is surging due to the high hurdle both prices and interest rates have placed on households to buy their own dwellings, along with the ongoing housing shortage. The build-to-rent platform gives households the space and features of single-family living without the capital outlay for maintenance and upkeep, industry experts say.

“We believe demand fundamentals for single-family rental housing will continue to grow at an attractive pace,” Brian Pieracci, head of North America private equity at Heitman, said in a statement. “Over the next decade, we expect a growing number of older millennials and retirees to rent as median home prices have grown at twice the pace of median incomes since 2000, making home purchasing less attainable and far less desirable.”

It was once timberland, owned by the New Zealand lumber company Rayonier. Through its subsidiary, Raydient Places + Properties, the company is the developer of Wildlight, which is in far NE Florida.

Wildlight is a master-planned mixed-use development in Nassau County. Two of its varied rental projects are actively seeking renters. The mix of newly constructed single-family rental homes and luxury apartments brings Wildlight 550 additional housing units.

Hamlet at Wildlight, developed by Middleburg Communities, has 250 cottages and townhomes, with one-, two- and three-bedroom homes. Amenities include a fitness center, a pool, dog park, and a clubhouse.

Exchange at Wildlight is a community of apartment homes developed by Hathaway Companies. It boasts 300 units, and residents enjoy balconies or patios, a clubhouse, 24/7 package concierge lockers, a pool, cybercafé, fitness center, dog park and electric car charging stations. Private garages are also available.

Equus Capital Partners paid $66.65 million for three North Carolina apartment complexes.

The Triangle Business Journal reports the firm previously owned the communities before selling them in 2019 to Investcorp, a New York firm, for a total of $46 million. 

The company will invest on average $3 million a piece on renovations. Upgrades include interior and exterior work along with enhancing the amenities. Madison Apartment Group L.P. will oversee the upgrades and manage the properties.

Investcorp sold the 180-unit Madison Hunters Glen for $26.85 million, the 122-unit Laurel Springs for $17.5 million and the 164-unit Laurel Oaks for $22.3 million.

Newmark’s Debt Capital Markets team of Steve Comly and Kippy Donovan assisted Equus in securing a 10-year fixed-rate loan from Fannie Mae.

One of the biggest names in real estate investment is leading the pack as investors follow job growth and population migration to the Sun Belt.

Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust has struck a deal to acquire Preferred Apartment Communities for $5.8B in cash. The acquisition has been approved by the PAC board of directors and is expected to close in Q2, subject to approval by shareholders.

Overton Rise, a Preferred Apartment Communities property in Atlanta

The price values Atlanta-based PAC at $25 per share. Shares in the REIT closed at $23.27 on Tuesday, itself a higher value than at any time in the last 10 years. A year ago, PAC traded for $8.21 a share.

PAC owns both apartments and retail properties. Its apartment portfolio includes 44 communities totaling about 12,000 units concentrated in the Atlanta; Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Nashville, Tennessee, metros.

The company’s retail portfolio includes 54 grocery-anchored assets totaling about 6M SF. Most of those properties are in the Atlanta, Orlando, Nashville and Raleigh, North Carolina, metro markets.

“The company’s grocery-anchored retail portfolio performance has also been strong and resilient, and we believe these types of necessity-oriented assets located in areas with growing populations are well-positioned for continued growth,” Blackstone Real Estate Senior Managing Director Jacob Werner said in a statement.

The deal comes on the heels of BREIT’s $3.7B all-cash acquisition of Resource REIT in January, which will also close in the second quarter of this year. Resource is a nontraded REIT that owns 42 U.S. apartment communities totaling over 12,600 units. Resource’s portfolio, like that of PAC, tends to focus on warmer states, with garden-style assets in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Texas. 

These two deals are only the latest sizable buys for BREIT. Last July, the company bought affordable housing assets from American International Group for about $5.1B, and in June, BREIT acquired Chicago-based Home Partners of America for $6B. Home Partners owns more than 17,000 single-family rentals in the United States.

Another out-of-town firm is targeting the Metro Atlanta area’s burgeoning build-to-rent housing sector, where developers take single-family homes and townhouses and operate them like apartment communities. 

Courtesy of Haven Realty Capital

Queen City Townes in Charlotte, one of the three communities that Haven Realty Capital purchased for its build-to-rent platform.

California-based Haven Realty Capital recently purchased two neighborhoods under development in Metro Atlanta to turn them into rental campuses: Stapleton Park in McDonough, which includes 76 Craftsman-style single-family houses, and Rosemary Park at Sugarloaf, a 78-unit townhome community in Lawrenceville. Haven also purchased Queen City Townes, a 106-unit rental townhouse community in Charlotte. The combined purchase of all three properties totaled $80M, according to a press release.

Since October, Haven has spent $500M on 1,500 homes in 17 communities in Georgia, the Carolinas, Arizona and Illinois. Haven’s model is to contract with homebuilders at the outset of construction and close on the homes once they deliver, it said in the press release.

Haven is another player coming to invest in the build-to-rent market in Metro Atlanta. While not a new segment of the real estate industry — for years, investors purchased houses to offer for rent — the market was mainly dominated by smaller investors who owned portfolios of single-family and townhouses scattered around the region.

Now there is an influx of more well-heeled institutional and bigger multifamily and housing developers like JPMorgan Chase, Invesco Real Estate, Blackstone Group, Lennar Corp., D.R. Horton and Toll Brothers buying or developing more traditional suburban neighborhoods, maintaining ownership and renting them out.

Earlier this year, Atlanta-based Crescent Communities, known for developing and operating its NOVEL luxury apartment brand, formed a joint venture with the DRB Group to develop single-family and townhouse build-to-rent communities across the Southeast.

And both Atlanta-based Kaplan Residential and RangeWater Real Estate announced plans recently to develop single-family and townhouse communities targeting renters as investors eye the metro area’s growing population along with climbing housing prices.

“It’s not like the old days when if you were renting a home, it was just because you couldn’t buy a home,” Haven Managing Principal Sudha Reddy said in an interview.

When Haven formed in 2010, the firm focused on buying single-family houses, fixing them up and then offering them for rental, Reddy said. But soon after, Haven shifted its strategy to investing in value-add apartment communities across the country. By 2019, the firm was eyeing a way to get back into the build-to-rent market, this time by amassing all the houses in a single neighborhood, Reddy said.

Haven entered the Metro Atlanta market in a big way last year when, in a partnership with Walton Street Capital, it purchased six neighborhoods with 537 single-family houses dedicated to renters from ResiBuilt Homes for $133.7M.

“The whole single-family rental demand, we were on the front end of seeing that demand over the past 10 years,” Reddy said.

While the build-to-rent market comprises 5% of new homes in the U.S., the segment is growing rapidly. A number of factors are fueling that demand, mostly centered on millennials, Reddy said. Now that they are having children, millennial households are becoming interested in schools and more space — characteristics more available in Metro Atlanta’s low-density suburbs — but either cannot afford to buy homes or don’t want to enter the ownership market.

“As homes get more expensive, you’ll just see more and more people remain in the renter pool,” Reddy said.

Homebuyers are encountering a market where demand has outstripped supply, causing housing prices to continue to escalate. Roughly 60% of all U.S. households are unable to afford the median-priced U.S. home of $346,577, according to the National Association of Home Builders. And for every $1K increase in a house’s price, another 154,000 households get priced out of homeownership.

The median price of a single-family home in Metro Atlanta has risen from $245K to $352K over the past 15 years, according to data compiled by the residential brokerage firm Engel & Volkers. Median housing prices climbed more than 25% year-over-year in June, according to the Atlanta Realtors Association.

Haven plans to focus on for-rent housing, instead of buying and fixing up apartment communities for the time being. Reddy said the prices investors have to pay for value-add multifamily properties, especially with cap rates as low as they are today, doesn’t give much room for error.

“Because we believe this segment of the market has better risk-adjusted returns, we have been less focused on multifamily as of late,” Reddy said. “We want to aggregate as many of these communities as possible.”