Stuart Buys 498-Unit Multifamily Portfolio

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MINNEAPOLIS-Stuart Management Corp., based here, has purchased a four-property multifamily portfolio from Chicago-based Equity Residential. The sale price and cap rate were not disclosed. The sale includes a total of 498 units for three properties in Plymouth and one property in Eagan.

Equity Residential was represented by senior managing director Matthew Lawton and directors Sean Fogarty, Marty O’Connell and Dave Nachison, all with Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP.

The Plymouth properties included in the sale were Summer Creek, a 72-unit property at 3900 Plymouth Blvd.; Coachman Trails, a 154-unit property at 1405 Olive Ln., and Fernbrook Townhomes, a 72-unit property at 14264-F 43rd Ave. N. The sale also included the 200-unit Woodridge at 3255 Coachman Rd. in Eagan. All of the properties except for Fernbrook Townhomes are free and clear of debt. Stuart Management Corp. will assume existing financing for Fernbrook Townhomes, Fogarty says.

Equity Residential sold the properties as part of a strategy to sell all of their Midwest properties, says a spokesman. “We are focusing on investments on the coasts and the sunbelt,” he says. “We hope, by the end of the year, to be out of the entire Midwest.”

Stuart Management owns residential rental properties in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Nebraska. “This fits into the type of property that they like to purchase,” Fogarty says. “This is a value add type of portfolio where they could prospectively add value through such things as interior modifications, etc.” The properties were all built in the middle of the 1980s and will need some renovations and deferred maintenance. Stuart Nolan, chair of Stuart Management, says there would be some renovations performed on the properties but would not give details.

The average rents per unit for the properties are between $925 and $950 for Woodridge, between $1,300 to $1,400 for Fernbrook Townhomes and between $975 and $990 for both Coachman Trails and Summer Creek, Fogarty tells GlobeSt.com. The rental properties currently have an occupancy rate in the “low to mid 90′s,” Fogarty says.