Dealmaker: JLL Income Property Trust Pays $82M for Seattle-Area Apartments

JLL Income Property Trust, Chicago, acquired Stonemeadow Farms, a 280-unit apartment community in Bothell, Wash., for $81.8 million.

Yardi Matrix, Santa Barbara, Calif., reported AEW Capital Management, LP, Boston, sold the Seattle-area property to JLL. Built in 1999 and recently renovated, Stonemeadow Farms includes 19 buildings on 30 acres.

Bothell is less than 20 miles from Redmond, Bellevue and Seattle, Wash. Numerous high-tech, biotech and life science firms are nearby, including Amazon, AT&T, Boeing, Expedia, Facebook/Oculus, Google, Microsoft and Starbucks.

“The price to rent an apartment in Bothell compared to this market’s average household income is very low,” said JLL Income Property Trust President and CEO Allan Swaringen. “We believe Bothell’s high median household incomes coupled with Stonemeadow Farm’s per-unit price of $290,000 makes this a strong investment in a market where single-family homes are averaging more than $600,000.”

Swaringen noted he expects this investments of this type to perform better in a late-cycle environment, “which is one of the drivers of our suburban apartment strategy focused on properties in locations with barriers to entry and highly-rated school districts,” he said. “These types of investments generally deliver stable cash flow, lower volatility and more resilience than other market locations.”

JLL Income Property Trust is an institutionally managed real estate investment trust. This acquisition increases its aggregate apartment allocation to $820 million and nearly 3,100 rental units, representing 32 percent of the value of the REIT’s overall portfolio.