JVM Dishes Out $30M for Des Plaines Apartments

JVM Realty has snagged another luxury apartment complex in Des Plaines, highlighting investors’ appetites for multifamily properties across Chicago’s suburbs despite a down year for commercial real estate transactions.

The Oak Brook-based firm, led by CEO Jay Madary, paid more than $30 million for the 113-unit Ellison Apartments at 1555 Ellinwood Street, northwest of Chicago, Crain’s reported. That’s about $268,000 per unit.

The seller was Boston-based Berkshire Residential, which put the property on the market in September 2022. The transaction, brokered by CBRE’s John Jaeger, marks the first time the complex has changed hands since it was built in 2019.

“Ellison Apartments is a rare find, in that it features an exclusive, boutique multifamily property in a high-demand, strategic location,” Madary told the outlet.

The Chicago area’s multifamily sector continues to thrive, as exemplified by the Ellison’s occupancy rate of 97 percent, with monthly rents ranging from $1,880 for a studio to $2,877 for a two-bedroom unit. However, the property’s occupancy rate is a tad below the average in the nearly full Des Plaines-Arlington Heights submarket, while rents are a notch above the area average.

Despite steadily rising rents and strong apartment demand in Chicagoland, there’s been a slowdown in sales amid rising interest rates, a tough lending climate and economic uncertainty. Nationwide, apartment sales were down 64 percent year-over-year in October, the outlet reported.

Market challenges haven’t stopped JVM, though, as the firm also acquired a 297-unit property in nearby Itasca for almost $99 million last year. It also picked up a 240-unit Romeoville apartment complex nearly a year ago for $72 million, and then doubled down with the purchase of the 149-unit Courthouse Square property in suburban Wheaton.

The largest suburban Chicago multifamily deal this year was Nuveen’s $103 million purchase of the 336-unit Oaks of Vernon Hills. The second-priciest deal happened in September, when Trinity Property Consultants paid $96 million for the 558-unit Westmont Village apartments.

— Quinn Donoghue