Nuveen Pays $103 Million for Vernon Hills Apartments

Following a purchase of a nationwide multifamily portfolio, asset manager Nuveen is beefing up around its home base of Chicago with another big suburban apartments deal.

The Chicago-based firm’s investment division paid nearly $103 million for a large apartment complex in Vernon Hills, in the northern suburbs of Lake County.

Nuveen bought the 336-unit Oaks of Vernon Hills at 103 Oak Leaf Lane from a joint venture of New York’s Azure Partners and Norfolk, Virginia-based Harbor Group International, according to public records. The deal closed earlier this month.

No mortgage has been publicly recorded as part of the deal, indicating that the buyer may have paid in cash to avoid the burden of paying interest on new debt amid climbing rates. The deal exemplified Harbor Group’s ability “to successfully divest of assets in varying market conditions,” the company’s Lane Shea said in a statement.

Nuveen, an affiliate of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Azure declined to comment.

The property last sold in late 2017 for $94 million, meaning the sale is a win for Azure and Harbor Group in an area where another seller recently took a loss. LaSalle Investment Management this spring sold the 248-unit asset at 15 Parkway North Boulevard in Deerfield at a 20-percent loss from its last sale value.

But the Vernon Hills deal comes as other large multifamily sales, including billionaire Zara founder Amancio Ortega’s $232 million purchase of a West Loop apartment tower, have attested to the strength of Chicagoland’s multifamily market.

Chicago’s apartment rent growth led the nation in August, rising 3.6 percent year-over-year, triple the national average of 1.2 percent and exceeding 20 major metropolitan areas, according to CoStar.

The Oaks at Vernon Hills sold for almost $306,000 per unit, higher than the average per-unit price for multifamily properties that traded in the second quarter of $187,2000, according to a July report from Cushman & Wakefield.

Nuveen’s appetite for multifamily assets was made known earlier this year with the purchase of a 12,000-unit multi-state affordable housing portfolio from Mo Vaughn’s Omni Holding Company.

Nuveen’s real estate arm is among the world’s biggest investment managers, with $156 billion of assets under management, according to its website.