Business Specialties  Investment
$250M Fund to Target Value-Add M-F Opportunities
Jul 01, 2009

Mid-America Apartment Communities Inc. has established a $250 million fund that will target apartment properties in the Sunbelt region. Mid-America Multifamily Fund II L.L.C. will be a joint venture between Mid-America and institutional capital, with Mid-America owning a one-third interest in the fund, with plans to acquire up to $250 million of apartment properties over the next 18 months. Fund II will focus on acquiring properties that are seven years old or more, with redevelopment and repositioning potential. Mid-America expects to invest a total of approximately $25 million in equity as investments are made. The firm will earn a management fee, an asset management fee, and have the potential to earn promote fees. There are no plans for Mid-America to contribute its existing properties to Fund

 
Recent Investment Headlines
Economic Update - Glimmers of Recovery on the Horizon
In news that caught most everyone's attention on Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor said that the nation's unemployment rate actually went down 10 basis points in July, to 9.4 percent. It's being called a sign of stabilization because monthly changes in the unemployment rate that small tend to be revised out of existence eventually, but at this point, "stabilization" looks pretty good.
U.S. Chain Store Sales Down 5% in July
Leaner inventories and a shift in state sales-tax holidays hampered U.S. chain store sales in July, which were off 5 percent on a same-store basis, compared with the same period last year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.
Multi-family Mortgage Originations Down 54 Percent from Same Time Last Year
Commercial and multi-family mortgage originations haven’t escaped the trickle down of the recession and the credit crunch, with volumes 54 percent below last year's second quarter and 83 percent below the peak seen in the second quarter of 2007, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's Quarterly Survey of Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Bankers Originations.
Economic Update - Deutsche Bank Offers Grim View of U.S. Mortgages
Like a trailer for a monster movie, a new report by Deutsche Bank is promising scary things in the not-too-distant future. Assuming that housing prices continue a decline, the percentage of underwater mortgages might rise to 48 percent of the total, or roughly 25 million loans, by the first quarter of 2011. The bank is predicting that U.S. home prices will decline a further 14 percent from current prices by the first quarter of 2011.
BOMA Chicago Initiates Country's First Office Building Smart Grid Program
The Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago has launched an effort to develop the country's first commercial office building smart grid program, delivering a utility-scale, clean, virtual generator through implementation of smart grid technology in more than 260 commercial buildings in downtown Chicago. With the potential to provide as much as 200 megawatts of demand response capability, the program would lower costs and avoid the need to construct expensive new generation plants. It requires upgrading the buildings' electric metering infrastructure, with significant building-level upgrades. To help address the estimated $185.4 million program cost, the city's BOMA chapter filed an application for $92.7 million in matching funds from the U.S. Department of Energy's Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, which was formed under the recently passed American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.