Starwood Capital Buys Thousands of Affordable Rental Apartments

(Bloomberg) -- Starwood Capital Group, the investment firm led by billionaire Barry Sternlicht, is stepping up its investments in affordable apartments as demand for cheaper housing soars across the U.S.

The company bought 4,448 rental units mainly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in Houston and across Florida, Starwood said in a statement Monday. Terms weren’t disclosed.

The purchase gives Starwood and its affiliates a total of almost 20,700 units of affordable housing, “making us one of the top 10 largest owners in the United States,” Mark Keatley, managing director at Starwood, said in the statement.

The apartments, in 21 communities, are in metropolitan areas with expected economic and population growth over the next five years, according to brokerage CBRE Group Inc. Florida and Texas will probably attract new residents because they have a higher quality of life and lower cost of living compared with other U.S. markets, Starwood said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Natalie Wong in Toronto at nwong133@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Debarati Roy at droy5@bloomberg.net, Christine Maurus, Daniel Taub

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