Upside Avenue has added six multifamily communities in the Lone Star State to its public non-traded real estate investment trust portfolio since early March.
The most recent investment is the 737-unit Quinn at Westchase in Houston. The community is located just west of uptown and south of the Energy Corridor, providing access to top employers, retail centers, and entertainment hubs.
Five additional communities with 1,070 units in the Dallas-Fort Worth region were acquired at the beginning of March, including the 198-unit Huntington Ridge in DeSoto; the 216-unit Mariposa Villas in Dallas; the 180-unit River Oaks in Wylie; the 144-unit Savoy of Garland in Garland; and the 332-unit Vistas at Pinnacle Park in Dallas.
“Now is the perfect time to focus on the strategy of buying low and selling high, and we do it with a margin of safety in our underwriting,” said Upside Avenue CIO Chi Hathiramani.
While the company is adapting how it invests due to COVID-19, it is still looking for opportunities that provide stable, long-term alternatives to the stock market.
“Today, value-add is a bit more difficult because rents are lower and wage incomes have dropped,” said Hathiramani. “We’re not sure we can get the same rent premiums today that we would usually underwrite under normal circumstances. Instead, we’re focusing on A- to B class assets in bulletproof locations where we can actually derive long-term appreciation while driving a healthy dividend today.”
