Fort Worth Multifamily Market Matures

Back in May, Comunidad Partners, an Austin, Texas-based investment firm, acquired Metro 7000, a 206-unit affordable housing community in Fort Worth.
The project includes units reserved for residents earning at or below 80 percent of the area median income (AMI). Twenty percent of units are reserved for renters earning 60 percent or less of AMI.

The property fit Comunidad Partners’ acquisition strategy, and Fort Worth is proving to be a market that supports the firm’s growth plans. The company acquires properties that have a minimum of 150 units, no functional obsolescence, curable deferred maintenance projects, large floorplans and enough space to provide community services.

The company’s target asset age ranges from 1970 to 2009. Antonio Marquez, managing partner of Comunidad Partners, explains that East Fort Worth is attractive to the firm because of its proximity to the urban core of the city with easy access to Dallas and the mid-city areas, which are the cities between Dallas and Fort Worth.

“We also noticed strong rent growth, particularly in these larger floor plans,” says Marquez. “We’re buying assets that are focused on serving families, and there’s not a lot of inventory in this particular submarket in East Fort Worth. The reality is there’s more demand than there is supply.”

Comunidad Partners targets the middle market.

According to the company’s website, institutional investors are focused primarily on the upper segment of the market while federal policymakers focus on the lower end of the market. This strategy is similar to the City of Fort Worth’s focus on the “missing middle.”

According to Comunidad Partners, workforce or middle-class multifamily comprises 52 percent of existing national multifamily housing stock but has gone largely untapped by professional operators in relation to the overall market. “For us, Fort Worth represents an interesting market from an affordability perspective,” says Marquez. “We think that existing multifamily properties that the middle class can afford are a diminishing asset class. We’re very bullish on that strategy, which is why we want to buy as much as we reasonably can. We think there will be more demand over the long term in Fort Worth.”

Source: Texas Multifamily & Affordable Housing Business July/August 2021 Edition: https://editions.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?m=66030&i=720019&p=8&ver=html5