Morgan Properties Acquires $501M Multifamily Portfolio

Morgan Properties bought a $501 million portfolio from Trilogy Real Estate Group, pushing the buyer’s apartment holdings past 100,000 units nationwide.

The 11-property trade between two of the most active players in multifamily real estate spans more than 3,054 units across eight states, including multifamily assets in Chicago, Columbus, Louisville, Memphis and Tulsa. The deal pencils out to $164,000 per unit.

Morgan Properties is the largest private multifamily owner in the United States. The acquisition marks a “defining moment” for the company as it continues its aggressive expansion throughout the Midwest.

Newmark brokered ten of the properties in the deal, while Walker & Dunlop handled one in Louisville.

The deal reflects Pennsylvania-based Morgan’s appetite for scale, as well as Chicago-based Trilogy’s selling spree.

Trilogy, led by Neil Gehani, has been reshuffling its portfolio in recent months. It listed 183 rental units at Skokie’s Optima Old Orchard Woods in January, part of a high-end condo complex near Chicago’s North Shore, as part of a broader repositioning strategy.

That listing followed Trilogy’s move to offload NoCa Blu, a 138-unit building at 2340 North California Avenue in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, which was included in the Morgan portfolio buy. Other properties changing hands include a pair of large Louisville assets, Park Laureate and Crescent Centre, as well as the 408-unit Villas at Bailey Ranch in Tulsa and the 386-unit Waterchase in Grand Rapids.

Morgan plans to implement a value-add strategy across the portfolio, with expanded amenities and interior upgrades, including flooring, appliances and smart-home features.

Morgan has doubled its apartment holdings over the past seven years, most notably with a $2.6 billion acquisition of nearly 100 communities, according to a news release. The company now owns over 360 communities across 22 states.

The firm has been actively expanding its multifamily portfolio through acquisitions. It closed an 11-property portfolio totaling 3,434 units across Pennsylvania from DePaul Management Company last July, but the price was not disclosed. The company plans to invest over $80 million in renovations into that portfolio.

In January, the firm broke into the Kentucky market with the $39 million acquisition of Blankenbaker Crossings, a 236-unit apartment community in Louisville.

The multifamily sector is set to experience a moderate increase in such bulk acquisition activity this year.

Multifamily deliveries will significantly slow following a marked decrease in construction starts, which are projected to decline to levels 74 percent below their 2021 peak and 30 percent below pre-pandemic levels by this summer, according to CBRE.

High-supply markets across high-growth regions that had negative rent growth last year are expected to turn positive this year. Cities like Salt Lake City, Fort Worth and Orlando, for example, hit their peak annual deliveries in late 2023 and early 2024 but still hold robust renter demand driven by job creation, population growth and high cost of homeownership.

Other deals this year in the half-billion dollar range include the Virginia REIT AvalonBay Communities’ $620 million deal for two apartment communities in Austin and six in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, paying about $230,000 per unit in February.

Newmark brokers Adam Doneger and Josh King negotiated the Morgan Properties and Trilogy deal on behalf of the seller.