Zell Buys 11-Year-Old Apartments for $80,258 per Unit

MIAMI-Chicago entrepreneur Sam Zell’s Equity Residential Properties Trust, the largest publicly owned apartment REIT in the United States, paid Prudential Real Estate Investors $37.4 million or $80,258 per unit for the 11-year-old, 466-unit Savannah Lakes community in Boynton, Beach, FL, 65 miles north of Downtown Miami.

The 11-year-old, 92%-leased property is between the nine million-sf Boca Raton, FL office market and the 7.9-million-sf West Palm Beach office market. The 38 buildings in the complex at 220 Savannah Lake Drive are adjacent to the 600-acre Quantum Corporate Park.

Byron Moger, senior vice president and Richard Donnellan, managing director, Atlantic Realty Partners, Boca Raton, arranged the transaction for Newark, NJ-based Prudential.

In a prepared statement, Donnellan says “the demand for multifamily investment property remains strong throughout Florida.” The broker says interest rates are favorable and investors’ return requirements are narrowing. “We see this dynamic continuing through the end of the year,” Donnellan says.

Zell, celebrated for years throughout the commercial real estate community as a savvy buyer, picked up Savannah Lakes at about replacement cost, area brokers not associated with the transaction tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity.

Equity Residential Properties’ multifamily portfolio is at the 5,000-unit level, according to various reports published recently in the trade newsletters. Zell couldn’t be reached at GlobeSt.com’s publication deadline.