Hilltop Residential, a Houston-based multifamily investment manager, closed its largest fundraise to date, raising $288M in commitments and planning to acquire up to $2B in assets. 

Hilltop Growth Fund VI will be used to acquire properties at “compelling bases” created by today’s capital markets dislocation, the company announced Tuesday. 

“Our strategy remains consistent: Acquire high-quality assets in growth markets where we can create value through operational improvements, capital enhancements, and disciplined asset management,” Hilltop Residential Managing Partner Greg Finch said in a news release.

Hilltop expects the fund to acquire about $1.5B to $2B in gross asset value and to fully deploy the fund within two years. Hilltop has already acquired nine assets with the fund and identified additional opportunities, according to the press release.

Finch, former president and co-founder of Venterra Realty, launched Hilltop Residential in 2017 with his sights set on multifamily value-add opportunities in Texas and other Southern states. The investment and development firm now manages a $3B portfolio of 13,000 units, including 12 properties in the Houston area.

Hilltop has invested in 15 Sun Belt markets, including Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte and Orlando, Florida. In January, the firm acquired a 292-unit community in the Houston Heights, the Houston Business Journal reported.

Hilltop also acquired a 308-unit community in St. Petersburg, Florida, in November, according to the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

The investor base for Hilltop Growth Fund VI includes endowments and foundations, financial institutions, insurance companies and family offices. 

“Closing our largest fund to date in one of the most challenging capital formation environments we’ve seen reflects the trust our partners have in our platform and our ability to capitalize on today’s multifamily opportunity set,” Hilltop Residential Managing Partner David Wylie said in the release. 

Digital Realty has closed its inaugural U.S. hyperscale development fund, an effort that represents a new approach to securing development capital for the world’s largest data center provider.

At the same time, the public REIT signaled a renewed commitment to pursuing private capital strategies to fund new data center build-out, announcing the hire of two executives to help lead its dedicated fund team. 

A Digital Realty data center in Ontario, Canada

The closure of Digital Realty’s first private development fund comes almost exactly a year after it was launched. The fund received $3.25B from a range of institutional investors — including public pensions, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations, corporate pensions, insurance and asset managers, and family offices — to support more than $10B of new hyperscale investment. 

The fund owns 80% of a portfolio of Digital Realty’s stabilized data centers and preleased development sites, including properties in Northern Virginia, Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte, New York and Northern California. Digital Realty maintains a 20% ownership stake and manages the fund. 

Creating a private development fund was a novel approach to leveraging existing data centers to raise the capital needed to build new ones — a major challenge for developers across the digital infrastructure space. The arrangement allows institutional investors to receive a steady stream of income from the fully leased data centers, while Digital Realty uses the invested capital to cover predevelopment and development costs without relying on project-specific debt. 

Digital Realty told investors the fund is part of a $15B liquidity pool from private capital it calls “dry powder” to bank land and power ahead of demand to be able to deliver capacity on short timelines when Big Tech tenants need it.

“We remain focused on sourcing and delivering hyperscale data center capacity to support our customers’ accelerating requirements, and private capital is playing an increasingly important role in how we prudently and efficiently scale PlatformDIGITAL,” Digital Realty Chief Investment Officer Greg Wright said Monday in a written statement.

“Strengthening our private capital capabilities enhances our customer focus, expands our ability to fund growth, and positions Digital Realty for durable long-term value creation.”

Digital Realty plans to continue using this new private capital strategy to augment the on-balance-sheet financing strategies it has traditionally used to fund new development, announcing Monday that it is adding a pair of experienced executives with private capital and fund management backgrounds to its leadership team. 

Former CBRE Senior Managing Director Michael Yang will join Digital Realty as the firm’s executive director for fund management. Yang previously held various investment management roles at Goldman Sachs, NEPC, GID and AEW Capital Management.

The company also brought on Bradley Petersen to serve as managing director for private capital fundraising. Prior to Digital Realty, Peterson held a similar position at Jamestown LP following stints at Garrison Investment Group and Aetos Capital Real Estate.

A North Carolina-based real estate investment firm is raising capital to try to cash in on properties that benefit from a key change in the tax code passed by President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Madison Capital Group launched Car Wash & Convenience Opportunity Fund LLC, seeking to raise $200M to buy up convenience stores and car washes, it announced Tuesday.

The fund’s strategy is to target properties that are eligible for 100% bonus depreciation that was made permanent through the OBBBA. Eligible properties must be purchased and placed into service after Jan. 19, 2025.

The accelerated Schedule F bonus depreciation allows owners to apply for bonus depreciation on assets such as store fuel pumps and canopies and car wash tunnels, conveyors, blowers and vacuum systems. It also applies to land improvements like driveways, signage and drainage systems. 

“Convenience stores and express car washes represent compelling essential service businesses with consistent consumer demand, multiple revenue streams and potential tax efficiency,” Madison Capital Group CEO Ryan Hanks said. “We believe this strategy aligns with our broader philosophy of identifying real assets in growth markets and structuring opportunities designed to optimize income and after-tax performance for investors.”

The Charlotte-based firm, which has about $4B in assets under management, will focus on states with no income taxes and growing populations. States with no income tax include Florida, Texas, Tennessee, South Dakota, New Hampshire and Washington.

The new fund is the second that Madison is raising in this space. In June, just a month before the OBBBA was signed into law, an affiliate of the firm, Madison Capital Markets, launched Madison Convenience Fund I LLC, which sought to raise $125M in investments toward convenience and gas station facilities. Properties acquired by that fund would be managed by FreshStop. That fund is now closed, according to PitchBook.

Madison Capital is one of a growing number of investors looking to leverage the bonus depreciation rule. Since it became law, there has been a boost in gas station, convenience store and car wash investment sales.

By October 2025, investment sale activity in convenience stores jumped 27% over the previous year, compared to a 17% increase in overall retail investment sales, according to data from net lease-focused real estate firm The Boulder Group.

Wireless Realty Advisors, LLC (WRA), a Norfolk, MA-based owner, operator and manager of wireless infrastructure assets, has closed the $120-million WRA Fund III LLC. The fund represents WRA’s fifth equity investment with Peppertree Capital Management and is focused on investing the acquisition of wireless real estate assets throughout the U.S.

“Since our introduction to the market 30 years ago, we have always been passionate about how data can be leveraged to create better operating efficiencies and scale,” said Tom Remillard, founder and CEO of WRA. “For WRA, data is more than just one of several hundred thousand dots on a map – it’s a relationship builder and a strategic tool that we will continue to grow and inject into our business model.” 

Additionally, WRA has promoted James Huth to president. Huth has been with WRA for seven years and has been instrumental in the growth of the company. 

Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. and Silverstein Properties, Inc. said Monday they had closed on Cantor Silverstein Opportunity Zone Trust II, Inc. with more than $470 million of equity raised. CSOZ Trust II includes four planned multifamily and mixed-use developments totaling 1,932 multifamily units and 1.5 million square feet and located in Tempe, AZ, Richmond, VA, Summerville, SC and Huntsville, AL.

“We have seen strong investor interest in this business, enabling us to build a diversified portfolio of institutional-quality multifamily real estate,” said Bill Ferri, global head of Cantor Fitzgerald Asset Management. “This growth underscores our commitment to creating lasting economic impact and revitalizing neighborhoods across the United States. We are optimistic about a potential extension to the overall Qualified Opportunity Zone Program to further drive meaningful growth.”

Cantor and Silverstein launched their Opportunity Zone business in early 2019 to invest in, develop, redevelop and manage a diversified portfolio of institutional quality commercial real estate assets. The firms are focused on multifamily properties located in Qualified Opportunity Zones in the U.S.

Pictured: Shorehaven, part of Cantor and Silverstein’s South Pier mixed-use development in Tempe, AZ.

Two months after launching a $1B venture targeting office-to-residential conversions, TF Cornerstone and Dune Real Estate Partners have already identified three buildings to turn into apartments. 

The fund, Alta Residential, is pushing to foreclose on a historic property in Philadelphia after buying a piece of the building’s distressed debt. It is also getting started on converting an office TF Cornerstone owns in D.C.’s central business district and is in final negotiations to take over a New York City property, TF Cornerstone principal Jeremy Shell told Bisnow in an interview.

The Fairfax, TF Cornerstone’s residential conversion of the former FBI headquarters in NYC.

Many of Alta’s projects will arise from distress in the office market and taking over problem loans, Shell said.

“A lot of these office buildings that are good conversion candidates, the values have eroded to the point where really the controlling position is in the debt,” he said. “So we’re looking at a lot of debt positions.”

The first target is the 1.4M SF Wanamaker office building in Center City, Philadelphia, where TF Cornerstone purchased the majority of the property’s CMBS loan. The foreclosure isn’t finalized — the building’s owner, Rubenstein Partners, placed it in bankruptcy proceedings last year — but Shell is optimistic.

“When we’re ultimately successful with that, we’re planning a conversion and repositioning of that historic building, which is very exciting,” he said.

TF Cornerstone, founded by brothers Fred and Thomas Elghanayan, owns and operates almost 12,000 residential units in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island City as well as more than 4M SF of commercial, office and retail space between NYC; Washington, D.C.; Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The Alta fund, a partnership with New York-based Dune, is aiming to take on between 20 and 25 projects in total, Shell said, putting around half the equity toward deals in NYC and deploying the rest in target markets, including Boston, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

The venture’s next projects could come from purchases out of foreclosure, buying debt and pursuing joint ventures with “people or banks who are in a situation where they need to ultimately reposition the office building that they’re currently sitting on,” Shell said.

The Elghanayans are no stranger to conversions. In 1997, Thomas Elghanayan — then president at Rockrose Development, a firm run by his two other brothers — converted 45 Wall St. from office to luxury residential as part of the Lower Manhattan Revitalization Plan. 

“Conversions are where Tom and Fred originally cut their teeth and had a lot of success over the years,” said Shell, who is Tom Elghanayan’s son-in-law. “We’re really excited to be going back into that space, now that the opportunity has presented itself.”

Including 45 Wall St., TF Cornerstone has completed 15 office-to-resi conversions spanning almost 5M SF, according to a company spokesperson. It also pulled off residential conversions at 95 Horatio St., which was previously a refrigeration facility in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, and the Upper East Side building that used to house the FBI’s NYC headquarters. 

In the five boroughs, Alta is looking specifically at properties in the Financial District, Midtown, and parts of Brooklyn. 

The joint venture has a long history. Elghanayan worked with Dune CEO Daniel Neidich when the latter was at Whitehall Real Estate Funds, a hedge fund and private equity firm. Shell worked with Neidich after business school, Commercial Observer reported. 

Policy measures passed last year, including the 467-m tax break at the state level and the City of Yes rezoning that opens up more property conversions, have made conversions an appetizing pursuit for the first time in more than a decade, Shell said.

“Values of office buildings have come down, the incentives from the state are there in terms of tax abatements, and we think there’s a lot of opportunity that we’re going to be able to take advantage of in that space in New York,” Shell said. “I’m really excited about that because we haven’t seen that over the last 15 years, as much.”

Converting office buildings into housing has been pitched as a potential solution to two problems that cities across the U.S. are facing — what to do with older, underutilized office properties and how to create much-needed housing amid shortages across the country.

But ultimately, while conversions present an opportunity to take a chunk out of the housing crisis, Shell believes more policy action is needed.

“Conversions are not going to be the panacea or cure-all for New York City’s housing supply issues. Far from it,” he said. “It’s one tool that’s needed, and will generate thousands of new apartments and thousands of affordable apartments, but we need a lot more than that in order to address the housing shortage.”

Seattle-based Pinnacle Partners, a real estate investment manager, and Dallas-based multifamily developer JPI announced the launch of a $200 million workforce housing fund.

The fund will back four projects, including one in Redmond at 15025 NE 24th Street. The new fund will partner on the development with the property owner with Stream Real Estate, reported the Puget Sound Business Journal.

“With JPI’s integrated development and construction platform and our capital raising expertise, we believe this fund will both meet crucial housing needs and produce strong returns for our investors,” Jeff Feinstein, managing partner at Pinnacle Partners, said in a news release.

Pinnacle Partners focuses on identifying and participating in qualifying Opportunity Zone real estate projects. To date, the company has capitalized over $1 billion in multifamily development projects, including over 900 lower-income workforce housing units.

Sagard Real Estate, formerly EverWest Real Estate Investors, acquired Vista Imperio, a 158-unit suburban garden-style multifamily property in Riverside, for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition is the first for Sagard’s newest, moderate value-add, open-end fund targeting seaport industrial, attainable rental housing and other niche property sectors.

“Green Street’s recent research commentary supports our view that rent growth in the Inland Empire has been among the strongest in the nation given spillover demand from Orange County and Los Angeles,” said Tyler Williams, co-portfolio manager. “We’re excited to execute on a value-add opportunity within the attainable housing space and capitalize on our proven ability to create value for both our apartment community residents and our investors.”

Sagard defines attainable housing as multifamily properties serving a tenant base earning 70-120% of the area median income. The value-enhancement plan for Vista Imperio includes improving operations and upgrades to amenities. Sagard will also renovate outdated units as they turn over.

Madison Capital Group launched the Go Store It Opportunity Fund, LP, a $250 million self-storage investment initiative aimed at acquiring and developing a diversified portfolio across high-growth Sun Belt markets, concentrating on Florida, North Carolina and Georgia.

The Go Store It Opportunity Fund, LP encompasses a strategy that value-add acquisitions of under-managed, locally owned facilities with below-market rents, create potential for rental growth and operational improvements. The fund will also pursue pre-stabilized acquisitions, enabling it to acquire properties at a discount, with valuations nearing replacement cost and potential for improved cap rates as the properties stabilize. Additionally, the fund will target stabilized assets with strong occupancy rates, providing incremental growth in high-demand areas.

The fund also integrates a development component to construct high-quality storage facilities in select markets with favorable supply-demand dynamics. By strategically building in suburban, urban fringe, and urban core areas, the fund aims to meet diverse storage needs across communities in the Sun Belt.

Faropoint, a Hoboken, NJ-based real estate investment firm focused on last-mile industrial properties, has secured a $150 million acquisition line with a leading U.S. financial institution for its Industrial Sale-Leaseback (ISLB) Fund. This marks the second loan facility provided to Faropoint by this institution, following a previous $130-million facility for Fund II.

The ISLB Fund was launched earlier this year with a $300-million target. It aims to capitalize on the debt gap created as local and regional U.S. banks reduce commercial real estate exposure.

“This $150-million acquisition line from our financial partner is a testament to the strength of our ISLB strategy and our ability to identify and execute on attractive opportunities in the last-mile industrial sector,” said CFO Idan Tzur. “We’re pleased to expand our relationship with a trusted institution, whose expertise and financial strength align perfectly with our growth objectives and empower us to navigate today’s challenging credit environment with confidence.”