Home Properties pays $90.4M In Cash for Apartment Community

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

With the BRAC process finished in Baltimore, some companies are looking to take advantage of the wave of new jobs coming to the state. Home Properties Inc. (NYSE: HME)  has recently aquired a White Marsh apartment community.

The Rochester, New York-based company paid $90.4 million in cash for the property aquired from CB Richard Ellis Investors. The deal was closed on August 23.

Located in the heart of White Marsh, the Apartments at Cambridge Court was built in 1999 and 2002. It consists of 544 units in 18 three-story garden-style buildings and two four-story mid-rise buildings. There are 218 one-bedroom units, 272 two-bedroom units and 54 three-bedroom units, with an average unit size of 962 square feet. At closing, it was 90.8 percent occupied with monthly rents averaging around $1,314. Current occupancy is 92.2 percent. Home properties paid roughly $166,000 per apartment.

The property  has direct access to I-95, is two miles from the Baltimore Beltway (I-695) and just 10 miles from downtown Baltimore. It is close to major employment centers and corporate campuses and can capitalize on the economic growth brought by the new 8,500 high-paying jobs relocated to the Aberdeen Proving Ground as a result of BRAC. Also, between the 2000 and 2010 census, the area has seen a 21 percent population growth.

During the first three years of ownership, Home Properties plans to invest $2.6 million, in addition to normal capital expenditures, to upgrade units upon turnover. Roughly $110,000 in acquisition costs will be recorded in the current quarter.

Home Properties is a multifamily real estate investment trust. It owns, operates, develops, acquires and rehabilitates apartment communities, with operations primarily along the East Coast of the United States. Currently, Home Properties owns and operates 119 communities containing 40,240 apartment units. In August 2010, it paid $58.1 million for the Annapolis Roards complex and the Greens at Columbia. Earlyer that year, the company also bought two Westminster properties, the Middlebrooke Apartments and the Westminster Apartments, for a total of $23.9 million.