Grant Cardone is on a Broward multifamily buying binge, paying more than $200M for two projects

Grant Cardone can’t get enough of Broward County. 

In recent months, funds affiliated with his Aventura-based Cardone Capital acquired two apartment complexes in Fort Lauderdale and Plantation as part of a half billion-dollar shopping spree across Florida. Cardone, a crowd-funding multifamily syndicator and business advice guru is also possibly buying a third Broward rental community next month. 

In May and June, the Cardone funds paid more than $200 million for a 382-unit complex at 501 Northeast Fifth Terrace in Fort Lauderdale’s Flagler Village, and a garden-style community with 468 apartments at 9733 Northwest Seventh Circle in Plantation, the South Florida Business Journal reported. 

The properties have been rebranded as 10X at Flagler Village and 10x at Jacaranda, respectively, according to Cardone Capital’s website. 

Cardone Capital owns four more multifamily projects in Broward that the firm acquired for a combined $744 million in 2021.

Cardone’s firm is also under contract to purchase Edge at Flagler Village, another Fort Lauderdale complex that has 382 units for more than $100 million in a deal set to close in September, Cardone Capital Vice President Ryan Tseko told the publication. The seller is Chicago-based Nuveen, which also sold the other two Broward properties to the Cardone funds.

In 2015, Nuveen paid $148.8 million for the Flagler Village complex, and paid $93 million for the Plantation rental community in 2017, records show. In 2016, Nuveen acquired Edge at Flagler Village for $114.3 million. 

In a text exchange with The Real Deal, Cardone declined to confirm the sale prices for the two Broward properties, as well as the pending deal for Edge at Flagler Village. 

Cardone Capital did not acquire the Fort Lauderdale and Plantation complexes through a traditional deed transfer that would require public disclosure of the sale prices. The firm also avoided paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in deed doc stamp taxes by instead purchasing the entities that own the two properties, state records show. 

Since December, Nuveen sold the two Broward properties as well as three multifamily projects in Fort Myers and Tampa to Cardone Capital for a combined $500 million, Cardone told TRD. 

“Paid all cash,” Cardone texted. “We continue to buy while institutions are sidelined.…I believe rents in Miami/Fort Lauderdale will double in the next five years. And we are buying as much as we can here.” 

Yet, rent growth has slowed significantly in South Florida in recent months. In the first half of this year, the average monthly rent in the tri-county region hit $2,530, up 0.6 percent from the same period of last year, a Berkadia report shows. From mid-2021 to mid-2022, South Florida’s multifamily asking rent experienced a 25.2 percent jump, according to Berkadia. 

Developers are also adding another 23,863 new apartments in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties by year-end, the highest number since 2002, the report states. 

The Cardone funds raise money from accredited investors, five-figure and four-figure contributions from non-accredited investors, and equity from Cardone. His firm pays monthly disbursements to accredited investors and quarterly disbursements to non-accredited investors from collected rents, Cardone said.

Cardone recruits some investors via his social media accounts, which have a combined 17.6 million followers. He often flaunts his vast wealth while doling out advice on how to get rich. 

In January, Cardone sued former T-Mobile CEO John Legere for defamation in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. The pending lawsuit alleges that Legere made false statements about Cardone on online forums, including calling him the “biggest bulls**t artist on the planet.”