- November 24, 2024
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TruAmerica Multifamily, a Los Angeles-based apartment investor, has acquired a pair of Pinellas County multifamily rental communities for $63.75 million.
The addition of the 262-unit Twin Lakes Apartments in Palm Harbor and the 192-unit Runaway Bay complex in Pinellas Park bring TruAmerica’s Florida portfolio to just under 5,000 units.
Matt Ferrari, the company’s co-Chief Investment Officer and its head of acquisitions, says the company was drawn to the pair of mid-1980s vintage properties because of their locations, lack of potential competition and ability to make improvements to them.
“The development pipeline in Pinellas is pretty thin, in large part because it’s a mature market and pretty built out,” Ferrari says. “There’s water on three sides of the county, so as a result, there’s only so much land one can build on. That makes for a fairly compelling barrier to entry.”
He adds the company also is attracted to the Tampa Bay area’s “exceptional” job growth and “rapidly shifting” employment base, which is diversifying and generating more higher-wage jobs in finance, technology and healthcare, to name a few.
Both the Runaway Bay and Twin Lakes complexes are nearly fully occupied.
TruAmerica, together with Washington, D.C.-based RSE Capital Partners, intends to invest about $5 million to improve the complexes, which contain a series of two-story, garden-style buildings.
The companies plan to upgrade interiors with “higher-end finishes” and improvements to common areas through new paint, landscaping and signage. TruAmerica and RSE also plan to install a new outdoor kitchen and refresh both complexes’ clubhouses, fitness centers and swimming pools.
Commercial real estate brokerage firm Newmark Knight Frank negotiated the TruAmerica and RSE deal on behalf of the seller and arranged for 10-year financing for the acquisitions.
TruAmerica’s Florida portfolio of 13 complexes in Clearwater, Orlando and Fort Myers among others was purchased for a collective $675 million.
In all, the six-year-old company formed as a joint venture between investor Robert Hart and the Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America has a portfolio of some 40,000 units valued at about $8.7 billion.
