Bar Invest Group buys Broward apartments for $44M

Miami-based Bar Invest Group has purchased a 300-plus unit apartment complex in Broward County for $44.1 million.

Serramar, a 302-unit community at 6701-6950 West Oakland Park Boulevard in Lauderhill, sold for $146,000 per apartment. Built in 1986, Bar Invest plans to renovate the property and bring the apartments up to market rents, Executive Vice President Herve Barbera told The Real Deal. 

Norfolk, Virginia-based Harbor Group International sold the 18-acre, 22-building complex. The firm paid $24.05 million for the property in 2005. Units average 1,019 square feet, and amenities include a renovated clubhouse, two swimming pools, a fitness center, sports court, children’s playground, car care center and more, according to Harbor Group International’s website.

Bar Invest financed the deal with a $28 million mortgage from BankUnited, Barbera told TRD. “Our business model right now for 2016 is to invest in gated communities [with] 250-plus units in Broward and Palm Beach counties,” he said.

Hervé Barbera’s father, Jacques Barbera, chairman of Bar Invest, launched the Miami company in 2001. The first project was co-developing Mary Brickell Village with Constructa, which the companies sold to Quebec-based Ivanhoe Cambridge for $135 million in 2005.

Earlier this year, Bar Invest sold a 240-unit, 15-building portfolio of South Beach apartments for $59 million. The company is also planning to purchase up to two shopping centers, similar to the four it bought last year in Broward County.

Bar Invest Group also owns apartments in Miami and North Beach and is developing Aquarela in Little Havana.

Apartments are a hot commodity in South Florida: more than $4 billion of multifamily properties have sold in South Florida from January to June, with the majority of those deals struck in suburban parts of Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Miami.

The South Florida Business Journal first reported the sale.