The American Invsco Corp. venture that agreed to pay $950 million for a portfolio of 13 apartment buildings with 3,686 units is in talks to line up $800 million of financing from Deutsche Bank to complete the deal. The portfolio is being offered by a team led by Starwood Capital Group.
RAIT Financial, which sponsors and owns most of Independence Realty Trust Inc., is planning an initial public offering of its common shares, allowing it to cash out of its investment. Independence Realty owns eight apartment properties with 2,005 units in six states.
An attempt by several congressmen to push the federal government to sell under-utilized properties has intensified this year, which could eventually result in a bonanza of available buildings for investors. Bills have been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives that would prompt the government to develop plans to sell excess non-military buildings. The government owns some 77,700 buildings that are underused.
AvalonBay Communities is offering for sale the Avalon on the Sound East, a 588-unit apartment property in the New York City suburb of New Rochelle, N.Y., that could fetch about $225 million, or $382,653/unit. HFF is marketing the property.
DDR Corp. has agreed to pay $1.46 billion for Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII's 95 percent interest in a portfolio of 30 retail centers with 11.8 million square feet, giving it full ownership of the properties. DDR will fund its purchase with a $566 million cash payment and the assumption of debt, as well as the retirement of preferred equity and mezzanine debt it had provided.
JPMorgan Chase has provided $936.5 million of financing against three upscale resort properties with 2,530 rooms. The properties are: the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in Phoenix, as well as the Ritz-Carlton Orlando and the JW Marriott Orlando at the Grande Lakes in Orlando, Fla. The bank has launched an effort to securitize a $510 million senior piece of the financing through JPMorgan Chase Commercial Mortgage Securities Trust, 2013-JWRZ.
A venture that includes Nicholas Gouletas, chief executive of American Invsco Corp., a prominent developer and manager of residential condominium properties, has submitted the winning bid of $950 million, or about $257,731/unit, for a portfolio of 13 apartment buildings with 3,686 units being offered by a partnership led by Starwood Capital Group.
Columbia Property Trust has put a portfolio of 17 office properties with 4 million square feet in 11 states up for sale through CBRE. The offering is an effort by Columbia Property, the former Wells REIT II, to fine-tune its portfolio as it moves toward executing a liquidity event. It bought the buildings in the portfolio over the years for a total of $590 million.
Fitch Ratings has taken a jab at the ratings its competitors have given a single-borrower CMBS transaction that's currently in the market, marking the first time a rating agency has openly criticized a deal before it was priced. The rating agency said it would have given the most senior class of Citigroup Commercial Mortgage Trust, 2013-375P, a rating of only A, five notches lower than the ratings it received.
Fowler Property Acquisitions, a San Francisco investment manager and multifamily property specialist, is marketing an investment fund that's slated to have $1.2 billion of acquisitions capability. Its FPA Apartment Opportunity Fund IV has raised $310 million in its early marketing, and is expected to raise more than $350 million by its final closing in late June.
