MHN’s February 2020 Must-Reads
- By
- Mar 06, 2020
New York took center stage in real estate news in February, following the state’s rule to outlaw rental broker fees and a state court’s order to temporarily halt it. Less than a week later, New York City’s Comptroller Scott Stringer proposed a Tenants Bill of Rights for renters in the city. A new Corcoran report showed that Manhattan’s and Brooklyn’s average rents continued to increase. In Manhattan, a partnership between Pebb Capital and TriArch Real Estate Group sold a 175-bed trophy student housing asset in Greenwich Village for more than $100 million. And in Brooklyn, nonprofit developer The BRP Cos. topped off its 255-unit affordable housing community in the Flatbush neighborhood, while All Year Management debuted the 1.2 million-square-foot Denizen Bushwick.
This February was also marked by a series of high-profile mergers and acquisitions or expansions, including Amherst Residential’s merger agreement to buy Front Yard Residential in a $2.3 billion deal, and Blackstone’s deal to acquire UK’s iQ Student Accommodation from Goldman Sachs and Wellcome Trust for a record-breaking $6 billion. Earlier last month, Blackstone also bought back a multifamily portfolio in Japan from the Chinese insurance giant Anbang Group for $2.8 billion, in the country’s largest property transaction to date. In the U.S., Cushman & Wakefield entered into an agreement to purchase Dallas-based Pinnacle Property Management Services. And in Canada, Starlight Investment teamed up with KingSett Capital to offer to buy the country’s third-largest listed multifamily REIT for $3.6 billion.
Student housing continued to make the headlines in terms of both development and investments, even as panelists at this year’s CampusConnex conference argued that the sector faces choppy waters as a result of oversupply and demographic headwinds. In Dublin, Global Student Accommodation Group acquired five purpose-built communities totaling some 2,000 beds for $440.2 million. In Latin America, CA Ventures is planning to invest $325 million in new, ground-up developments in three Mexican cities—Merida, Mexico City and Monterrey. Meanwhile, in Georgia, Holder Properties is working on a 719-bed community near the Auburn University campus, expected to come online next fall. And Bahrain’s Investcorp teamed up with The Preiss Co. to purchase a 525-bed asset catering to students at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
Here are MHN’s must-reads for last month: