Brass Enterprises trades its North Lauderdale apartments: $54M

Canadian investment firm Brass Enterprises just sold off the first phase of an apartment complex in North Lauderdale for $53.75 million.

The community is Parrot’s Landing, a garden-style apartment complex composed of low-rise buildings and 560 units at 7900 Hampton Boulevard. County records show it was built in 1986 and has been sold four times since then, each time for a higher value.

Brass, which has its headquarters in Toronto, bought Parrot’s Landing for $56.3 million in 2012. The community is split into two phases: the one included with this sale that has 408 units and another portion that was built in 1996 with 152 units.

The investment firm sold off the smaller Phase II for nearly $16 million in 2014, according to county records, or about $105,263 per unit.

Now, the investment firm has sold Phase I to a company managed by Indra Singh for $131,740 per unit. The buyer financed its purchase with a $46.8 million loan from an affiliate of the Arbor Realty Trust.

Both those deals combined have Brass raking in $72.11 million for the community as a whole, an increase in price of 28 percent.

Ronald Meyerson

Ronald Meyerson of Melo Real Estate represented the buyer for this deal.

“The buyer has a value add plan to upgrade the property and increase rents to meet surrounding comps,” Meyerson said in his firm’s Tuesday announcement of the deal. “That combined with the ability to maximize economies of scale with the few hundred units the buyer owns just a short distance away from Parrot’s Landing, should provide the new owners with plenty of growth opportunity.”

Parrot’s Landing is in the western half of the city, less than two miles away from the former Walmart building on West McNab Road that sold for $7 million earlier this year and the North Lauderdale Elementary School.

Apartments at the community range in size from 750 square feet for one bedroom to 1,100 square feet for two bedrooms. Rents start at $1,150 per month, and amenities include three pools, tennis courts, a fitness center and walking trails.

Suburban apartment communities are hot commodities among South Florida’s investors: so far this year, more than $4 billion worth of rental complexes have been sold in the region, with much of that activity located outside of urban cores.

According to its website, Brass was originally formed to trade apartment communities in Canada. But the company has expanded to South Florida in the past three years, citing its proximity to South America and large population of hospitality workers as reasons why the region is an attractive investment. Earlier this year, Brass sold its apartment complex in Oakland Park for $10 million — a $3 million premium over what it paid in 2012.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the sale included both portions of the Parrot’s Landing apartment community. The deal included Phase I; Phase II was sold separately in 2014.