Equity Residential recently agreed to purchase eight properties, totaling 2,064 units, in Atlanta for $535 million, according to an investor update released by the Chicago-based REIT last week.
“These well-located suburban assets complement our existing Atlanta portfolio and will allow us to achieve scale and diversification in the market,” EQR said in the update.
The REIT funded the purchase, which is expected to close this quarter, by selling older assets in its existing coastal markets.
“We would expect these assets to be accretive to normalized [funds from operations] per share beginning in year two of our ownership period due to favorable supply/demand characteristics expected in Atlanta, along with realization of various operating initiatives,” EQR said in the update.
EQR, like Arlington, Virginia-based AvalonBay Communities, has been focused on selling older assets in its coastal markets and redeploying the capital in high-growth Sun Belt metros of Atlanta, Dallas and Austin, Texas.
“We think our best opportunity [versus buying back stock and developing] continues to be investing in existing assets in these primary acquisition markets of Dallas, Denver and Atlanta,” CEO Mark Parrell said on EQR’s earnings call in late April. “We're still interested in Austin, but there's such a glut of supply, it's probably a little bit later for us to complete our portfolio there.”
In the first quarter, Atlanta, Dallas and Austin performed as expected “given the challenging operating conditions” caused by new supply, EQR Chief Operating Officer Michael Manelis said on the REIT’s earnings call in late April.
“Denver's overall demand felt a little weaker than we would have expected in the quarter, which resulted in less pricing power,” Manelis said.
EQR expects $1.5 billion of acquisitions and $1 billion of dispositions in 2025. “When we gave guidance, we expected to transact very little in the first quarter, and that was the case,” Parrell said.
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