A joint venture between Boca Raton, Florida-based Eastham Capital and Chicago-based Bender Companies doubled down on its multifamily conquest in the Chicago suburbs.
The Eastham and Bender venture bought the Park Tower Apartment Homes at 3905 Tower Drive in Richton Park for $30 million, according to a press release.
The purchase of the 270-unit apartment community comes out to about $111,000 per unit.
Built in 1974, the apartment complex is 94 percent occupied and consists of one-bedroom and two-bedroom floor plans, according to the release. Rents average $1,531 per month.
The seller was Conshohocken, Pennsylvania-based mega-investor Morgan Properties, public records show. It’s not clear when Morgan bought the building, but the most recent mortgage that the firm took out against it was a $27.3 million loan issued by Newmark in 2022, records show.
The deal was the second deal for the venture in recent weeks.
Eastham and Bender bought the 168-unit Flats at Gladstone apartments in Glendale Heights for $24 million, according to another press release issued last week. That deal came out to $143,000 per unit.
Morgan has also been on the buy side in the Midwest more broadly.
Last year, Morgan Properties bought a $501 million portfolio from Chicago-based Trilogy Real Estate Group, which pushed Morgan’s apartment holdings past 100,000 units nationwide.
The 11-property trade between two of the active players in multifamily real estate spanned more than 3,054 units across eight states, including multifamily properties in Chicago, Columbus, Louisville, Memphis and Tulsa. The deal penciled out to $164,000 per unit.
The Midwest in general has benefited from the slowdown in rent growth that much of the Sun Belt experienced after an influx of new construction that began in about 2020.
In Chicago, a slow pipeline of new supply is contributing to record rent growth. Investors have preferred the outer suburbs because they have a more predictable property tax environment than the city and its closest suburbs.