Pennsylvania investor expands to Dallas area with apartment buy

A Pennsylvania-based apartment investor has expanded to North Texas with the purchase of a Far North Dallas rental community.

Morgan Properties acquired the Grand Seasons apartments on Belt Line Road near Preston Road as part of a huge nationwide deal.

Morgan Properties, in a partnership with Olayan America, paid $1.75 billion for more than 14,000 apartments in 11 states.

The 48 apartment communities — including the Dallas property and two in Cedar Hill — were bought from Star Real Estate Ventures.

“The … transaction played to our strengths, and we knew we were one of the only groups in the country that could bring it to fruition,” principal Jason Morgan said in a statement. “It is a daunting task for most buyers to acquire geographically diverse portfolios and incorporate the properties into their operational platform, but this is one of Morgan Properties’ core competencies.”

The company has bought more than $5.5 billion in projects totaling 40,000 apartments in the last two years.

The latest purchase was made up of communities in Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Maryland.

The just-acquired apartments on average were built in the mid-1980s. The Grand Seasons apartments in Dallas were built in 1978.

The Dallas-area purchase had 744 units in all, including two communities on Pleasant Run Road in Cedar Hill — Legacy at Cedar Hill Apartments & Townhomes and Grand Seasons Apartment Homes.

The new owners plan to spend $100 million on upgrades to the properties.

Morgan Properties has been in business since 1985 and owns 90,000 apartments in 20 states.

Olayan traces its roots to Saudi Arabia in the late 1940s and has investments around the world. Its Americas headquarters is in New York.

Dallas-Fort Worth has been a top market for apartment buys. In 2020, investors spent more than $10 billion on North Texas apartment deals. That was more than any other U.S. market, according to a recent report by the commercial property firm Newmark.