First Purpose Built Single-Family Rental Community in Tampa Set to
Begin Leasing in June
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–One of the most established operators in the single-family rental
sector, Lafayette Real Estate (“Lafayette”), has joined forces
with one of its upstarts in Guardian Residential (“Guardian”), to
create a unique investment platform that focuses solely on the
acquisition and development of newly constructed homes for the purpose
of long-term rentals.
The new firm, known as Lafayette Communities, will be led by Thibault
Adrien, current CEO of Lafayette Real Estate, and Dennis Cisterna III,
current CEO of Guardian Residential. Both are long time industry
executives in the single-family rental space and had sought a productive
partnership for the past year. Adrien commented, “We are very excited
about this new partnership and the synergies between Lafayette and
Guardian. Dennis and the Guardian team bring exceptional origination and
pre-underwriting skills while the Lafayette platform will provide strong
final underwriting and property management capabilities. We think we can
build a very scalable investment company dedicated to the build-for-rent
space.
Lafayette Communities is opening its first rental community, the 51-unit
Preserve at Pine Grove, in the Riverview submarket of Tampa in early
June. The community will consist of affordably priced 3 and 4 bedroom
detached homes with modern features such as granite countertops and
stainless steel appliances.
The firm has additional communities under development in Florida and is
planning expansion into markets in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and
Tennessee before the end of the year. Cisterna noted, “Lafayette
Communities is the next evolution in the single-family investment space.
We are able to scale our business much faster, while operating our
portfolio more efficiently, than traditional operators in the sector.”
As distressed inventory, long seen as the primary source of
single-family rental operators, has waned, operators are looking for
creative ways to continue to expand their holdings beyond consolidation
of its competitors. In order to achieve desirable risk-adjusted returns,
Lafayette Communities partners with large public and private
homebuilders throughout the nation who are able to deliver homes at
below market pricing due to the volume and speed of this investment
strategy.
Lafayette Communities also prides itself on adding something sorely
missing from the housing market – new workforce housing. “It’s
unfortunate we aren’t building enough homes in this country
post-recession to fulfill the demand in the market,” said Adrien. “Even
worse is the sharp decline in the development of entry-level housing.
Even though we are developing these communities as rentals in the short
term, we feel adding affordable supply to markets is very beneficial to
satiate long-term demand for workforce housing.”
About Lafayette Real Estate
Founded in 2011 by Thibault Adrien, Lafayette RE LLC is a New York-based
private equity firm focused on the single family homes asset class in
the U.S. Lafayette’s first two funds implemented a distressed
acquisition strategy, focusing on foreclosure sales exclusively.
Brandywine Homes USA was launched in 2014 as Lafayette’s fully owned
property management arm. In 2016 Lafayette
Lending began investing in the fix & flip lending space generating
attractive risk adjusted returns. It is currently participating in the
consolidation of the SFR market, buying under scaled stabilized single
family homes portfolios, and scaling further its private lending
business. Lafayette currently manages three funds on behalf of its
investors, invested across 1,500 single family homes, 200 fix & flip
loans and 150 vacant land lots. Visit www.lafayette-re.com
for additional information.
About Guardian Residential
Guardian Residential is a private real estate investment firm
established to capitalize on a unique set of conditions in the U.S.
housing market via the acquisition of single-family residential
properties. Built on a foundation of steadfast ethics, Guardian
Residential is dedicated to “Investing in the American Community”
through the principles of institutional data-driven investment analysis
with exceptional boots-on-the-ground operational experience and
meticulous asset management to deliver strong, risk-adjusted returns.
Visit www.guardiansfr.com
for more information.
Contacts
Lafayette Communities
Maylis de Lacoste
Investor
Relations
832.236.3392
[email protected]
