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Newmark announces the sale of The Azure, a 156-unit, Class A, garden-style multifamily property located at 1201 Albert Avenue in Midland, Texas. The asset sold for an undisclosed price and was 100 percent occupied at the time of sale. Located at the midway point between Fort Worth and El Paso, Midland is an oil industry center located in the Permian Basin, an area which accounts for 30 percent of US oil production.
Senior Managing Director Bart Wickard, Executive Managing Directors Brian Murphy, CCIM and Brian O’Boyle, Jr. and Transaction Manager Matt Wideman represented Odyssey Residential Holdings, LP in the sale to an undisclosed buyer. Wickard, Murphy, O’Boyle, Jr. and Wideman are part of Newmark’s Dallas-based Multifamily Capital Markets team focused on secondary markets which cover North Texas, including all territory north of Waco and New Mexico.
Midland’s connection to domestic and global energy markets has created one of the most dynamic job and housing markets in the nation: last year’s 11 percent job growth translated into a 21.4 percent year-over-year effective rent growth for multifamily assets.
“Job growth in Midland, The Azure’s location, Class A status and amenity package appeals to employees moving to the area,” said Wickard. “The sale required the successful identification of a buyer able to complete a loan assumption through Freddie Mac and TDHCA. Navigating the complexities of a dual assumption loan can be complicated and our team was able to provide the required expertise, advice, and depth of knowledge of the Midland market.”
The Azure is a luxury apartment community in Midland’s top home market that is proximate to major employment hubs and numerous retail, restaurant and destination attractions nearby, including parks, golf courses and major malls. Constructed in 2015, the asset’s community amenities include a business center, media room, fitness center and resort-style pool. Individual units offer spacious floor plans with high-end finishes and private balconies and patios.
Midland’s agglomeration of oil and gas firms - employing over 27 percent of its workforce - make local job and housing market dynamics highly sensitive to those of the industry cluster, namely the wider national and global macroeconomic outlook, energy industry trends and policy, and market volatility. Such a high concentration of these firms creates a strong economic multiplier effect, causing growth and contraction of the industry’s workforce to ripple through the local economy with an even greater impact. However, the previously discussed innovations and pipeline projects will make the Midland economy more resilient by moderating these historic boom-bust cycles.
These factors illustrate how secondary markets, like Midland, require deep insight to understand their value. Wickard, Murphy, O’Boyle, Jr. and Wideman make up one of the only teams in the state that exclusively focus on multifamily in the secondary markets of North Texas. The Azure sale is the team’s seventh class A transaction within the last year.
“Bart Wickard and Matt Wideman were great to work with on this complicated transaction,” added Saleem Jafar, President of Odyssey Residential Holdings, LP. “Their expertise on the Midland market and professionalism is unmatched.”
About Newmark
Newmark (“Newmark”), operated by Newmark Group, Inc. (“Newmark Group”) (NASDAQ: NMRK), is one of the world’s leading and most trusted commercial real estate advisory firms, offering a complete suite of services and products for both owners and occupiers. Together with London-based partner Knight Frank and independently-owned offices, Newmark’s 16,000 professionals operate from approximately 430 offices on six continents. Newmark’s investor/owner services and products include investment sales, agency leasing, property management, valuation and advisory, diligence, underwriting, government-sponsored enterprise lending, loan servicing, debt and structured finance and loan sales. Occupier services and products include tenant representation, real estate management technology systems, workplace and occupancy strategy, global corporate services consulting, project management, lease administration and facilities management. For further information, visit www.ngkf.com.
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