Big apartment deal indicates boom for rentals
Tishman Speyer Properties along with Lehman Brothers, announced recently it would acquire Archstone, the #2 publically0traded owner of rental apartments in the US. The deal is for over $22 billion. The deal will be the second-largest real estate deal in history.
Archstone owns some 344 apartment complexes mostly affluent communities. It apparently has over $4 billion in new construction underway. The company also has German operations, having bought German apartment owner DeWAG in 2006, at a price of $650m.
Tishman Speyer is a privately-held company, a major owner and developer of commercial real estate. It owns, among many other properties, Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building, and the MetLife Building. Last year it bought the famous New York apartment complex Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village, for $5.4 billion.
The theory is that the long-neglected apartment ownership business is heating up as mortgage loans get tighter. This is especially true in the major downtown city locations where many Archstone properties are located.
And more big deals may be in eth works. The #1publically traded apartment company is Equity Residential, owned by tycoon Sam Zell. Zell also recently sold of his Equity Commercial company to Blackstone Group for $39 billion. It's doubtless the case that other big players in the reel estate market and private equity are looking at the Equity Residential company.
Obviously, the apartment and commercial real estate markets are far too big to corner. The Archstone deal, however, consolidates some prime residential assets and just may help bring down competition in some of the biggest, richest cities (New York, San Francisco, Washington) just enough to stabilize and even inch up prices.
6:44:12 PM 
|
|
