The company plans to add 10,000 homes more by the end of the year
Amherst Residential acquired 2,400 single-family rental properties located in multiple states, adding to its portfolio of over 23,000 homes.
The deal was made in several transactions since October and valued at around $404.1 million in total. In the largest of the transactions, the Texas-based firm acquired 446 single-family rental homes for $103.3 million in February this year.
Amherst said the latest acquisition expanded its footprint to 29 markets, including Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
"We see an opportunity for consolidation across the single-family residential market, and are focused on executing portfolio acquisitions that facilitate expansion into areas of high growth," said Amherst Residential President Drew Flahive. "With the size, flexibility and attractive cost of capital associated with our scalable platform, we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on market fragmentation to aggregate bulk portfolios of single-family rental assets."
"Across Amherst's rapidly growing single-family rental platform, occupancy is high, rent growth is strong and margins are expanding as we continue to enhance our presence in markets where we see significant value and growth opportunities," said Joe Negri, co-head of Institutional Single-Family Residential at Amherst.
The company said it is actively going after additional acquisition opportunities and plans to add more than 10,000 single-family rental homes by the end of 2019.
"Supply of single-family housing inventory in the United States is at historical lows and we are seeing consistently strong demand for high-quality, safe and affordable, single-family housing," said Chris Avallone, co-head of Institutional Single-Family Residential at Amherst. "Amid this rising demand, we intend to accelerate acquisition activities and continue to provide the market with value-add services to lower the cost of real estate ownership."
