L.A. Investors Buy Third Austin Multifamily Property

California firm Tides Equities closed on the purchase of a 181-unit apartment complex in Austin. It’s the Los Angeles company’s third multifamily acquisition in Texas’ capital city.

Tides bought the MARQ at Mueller at 5700 Cameron Road for about $30 million, according to a person familiar with the deal. The seller was London-based financial services company Cooper Street Capital. Maryland’s Walker & Dunlop was the broker.

Tides at Mueller at 5700 Cameron Road (Tides Equities)

The 129,120-square-foot complex is on 5 acres. It was built in 1969. It has one- and two-bedroom apartments with an average size of 717 square feet. Amenities include a swimming pool, a playground and a barbecue and picnic area.

The property is less than a mile from the Mueller planned community in central Austin, adjacent to the Capital Plaza retail center and about four miles from the University of Texas at Austin campus.

The company will invest $4.5 million in renovations on the property, which will include upgrades that will make it consistent with the Tides brand. As part of the rebranding, the MARQ at Mueller will be renamed Tides at Mueller.

Tides has been buying similar properties at a steady pace in Texas and throughout the Southwest. It’s particularly active in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, where it bought $1.5 billion in multifamily properties in 2021 and has now purchased about 32 apartment complexes.

The Austin market has been a little harder to crack. “Austin real estate is definitely more expensive than Dallas,” Tides cofounder Sean Kia told The Real Deal in January, adding that “not as much trades in Austin.”

Nevertheless, Tides persisted. It picked up its Tides on South Lamar in 2021 and bought Tides at Copper Creek in north Austin in January. Tides at Mueller is its third Austin purchase and its 112th acquisition in the western United States since 2016.