This article originally appeared in Orange County Business Journal
October 11, 2021
Newport Beach-based Buchanan Street Partners continues to ramp up its multifamily portfolio outside of California, with a renewed investment strategy in Texas.
The real estate investment firm’s most recent reported purchase was a 294-unit apartment complex in Dallas, bringing its rental buys in the state to nearly 900 units in the past year.
More is on the way, with 400 additional units under contract in the Fort Worth region. “Apartments have been a very rewarding sector of late, especially following the pandemic,” said Chairman Robert Brunswick. “There’s been a lack of new home development in a lot of markets, which has enabled rents to appreciate meaningfully across the country.”
Growing Markets
While Orange County’s multifamily market hasn’t been a source of deals of late for Buchanan, the firm is bullish on growing markets like Texas and Colorado.
Cypress Real Estate Advisors sold the Dallas apartment complex at 4600 Ross, which a four-story complex that was built in 2020 and was 95% occupied at the time of sale. Local reports peg the area where the complex is located, east of the city’s downtown, among the city’s most active for apartment investors.
The deal marks Buchanan’s third in the state over the past year.
“These are more affordable markets with strong rent and job growth, which makes more sense for us on an investment basis,” Brunswick said.
OC Activity
In OC, Buchanan is in the process of converting a two-building office property it owns along Bristol Street in Newport Beach into a medical office complex.
The firm paid $11.5 million for the 42,697-square-foot office project at 1400 & 1420 Bristol St. North last year; it more recently kicked off an adaptive reuse project to update the property for medical and healthcare tenants.
The firm is also making strides in a self-storage platform that it launched last year.
Buchanan is under contract for two self-storage acquisitions in Orange County and San Bernardino, which will bring the portfolio to four properties totaling about $100 million.
The company hopes to reach $500 million in investments over the next few years.
“What’s driving the self-storage market is new household formation among millennials who are outsourcing home storage in a much more efficient way,” Brunswick said.
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