A real estate fund run by a Deutsche Bank subsidiary took a nearly 10% haircut on its recent sale of the Marela Apartments southwest of Fort Lauderdale.
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Abacus Capital Group paid $110M for the 368-unit, garden-style apartment complex in Pembroke Pines, or around $299K per unit. The seller was an entity controlled by RREEF Property Trust, which is run by DWS Group, an independent asset management firm majority owned by Deutsche Bank.
The trust paid $121M for the 21-acre property in August 2021, property records indicate. The latest sale was confirmed by records from property intelligence platform Vizzda.
The Marela Apartments at 250 NW 130th Ave. are made up of 13 three-story buildings and three clubhouses built in 1998 totaling 421K SF. Other amenities include two pools, a fitness center, a playground and a pet park.
New York-based Abacus, which didn’t respond to a request for comment, secured a five-year, $71.5M Freddie Mac mortgage serviced by JLL to finance the sale.
RREEF owned the apartment complex outright, meaning the property wasn’t under any financial distress. A DWS spokesperson declined to comment about the sale.
Units at the Marela start at $2,021 for an 890 SF one-bedroom and reach $3,127 for a 1,356 SF three-bedroom unit, according to a listing on Apartments.com.
The recent sale caps off an active summer in Broward’s multifamily market.
Cardone Capital, led by influencer and investor Grant Cardone, paid more than $200M for two apartments in the area last month, The Real Deal reported. Cardone's Aventura-based firm picked up a 328-unit building at 501 NE Fifth Terrace in Fort Lauderdale’s Flagler Village along with a 468-unit garden-style complex at 9733 NW Seventh Circle in suburban Plantation.
In July, an affiliate of the Mormon church paid $133M for The Ellsworth, a 315-unit project in Plantation that was recently completed by PGIM Real Estate and Stiles Corp. That same month, Clarion Partners paid $49M to buy the 197-unit Manor in Plantation apartments from a Nuveen affiliate.
The Marela Apartments sale was at least the second South Florida loss for RREEF in the last two years. It also sold the 220K SF office building at 255 Alhambra Circle in Coral Gables in August 2023 for $54M, roughly $6M less than it paid for the property in 2006.
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