Investment Firm Buys Southland Homes In $28 Million Deal
(STMW) -- Tinley Park-based Mack Cos. said it has sold nearly 200 single-family homes in the south and southwest suburbs to an Arizona-based real estate investment trust for $28 million.
Mack — which buys, rehabs then rents foreclosed homes and other distressed properties — said the deal with American Residential Properties also calls for Mack to supply the company with 30 to 50 additional homes each month over the next two to three years.
Mack owns and manages 350 homes in the Southland, and manages another 250 homes on behalf of real estate investors.
The purchase represents American Residential Properties' first venture north of its core base of homes in south and southwest states, including Florida, Arizona, Nevada and California. Like Mack, the company also buys and renovates distressed properties.
"We've been looking at entering the Chicago market for a while given its high foreclosure volume and robust demand for single-family rentals, but we didn't want to partner with a firm just because it had a large amount of inventory — it had to be the right inventory," Steve Schmitz, American Residential Properties' chief executive, said in a news release announcing the deal with Mack.
The homes that were sold to Schmitz's firm are in suburbs including Country Club Hills, Flossmoor, Homewood, Lynwood and Matteson, said Eric Workman, vice president of sales for Mack. He said his company will continue to manage the properties for American Residential Properties for five years.
Mack, established in 1997, said it has seen increased demand for the rental of single-family homes in the wake of a recession that has caused home values to plummet. Some of the company's customers are renting after losing their homes to foreclosure or don't want to buy a home over concerns home values will be slow to recover.
Citing data from real estate firm CoreLogic, Mack said single-family rental demand is far outpacing the available supply, and that in some markets rental demand has jumped more than 25 percent in the last year.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2012. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
