Tricon, Arizona Pension Fund Adds $500M to BTR Venture

Tricon Residential and the Arizona State Retirement System ASRS) are doubling down on their partnership to develop BTR housing in the Sun Belt, forming a new joint venture that adds $500M in equity to their original $450M investment.

The $500M infusion includes a $100M investment from Tricon that will be deployed over a three-year period. The expanded investment brings the total investment by the partnership to more than $1B when associated leverage is included.

In 2019, Tricon and ASRS formed their first joint venture, which built 2,000 homes and has another 3,500 in its development pipeline.

Tricon, which owns and operates an estimated 37,000 SFR homes and multifamily rental units, has committed $2B overall to develop BTR properties in a series of joint ventures the company has formed over the past four years. The company also is in the midst of a $5B SFR acquisition venture with multiple partners.

In a statement, CEO Gary Berman said the expanded venture with AZ pension fund is aimed at increasing the housing supply. Overall, Tricon has more than 7,000 new homes under development.

A partnership between Tricon and HHS Residential preparing to deliver later this year Tricon Willow Creek, a community of 146 rental homes in Tomball, TX, the first of 14 SFR communities encompassing 1,900 homes Tricon is building in Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio.

Tricon’s SFR acquisitions strategy, funded with a $5B joint venture with the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and Pacific Life Insurance, aims to purchase more than 18,000 SFR homes in the Sun Belt.

Pension funds are still bullish on commercial real estate, but many are pulling back on investments from the underperforming office sector and shifting their resources to in-demand CRE assets including industrial, housing, life science and infrastructure, GlobeSt. reported.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) has been selling office buildings in its $312B investment portfolio and adding industrial, residential and infrastructure assets in 2022.

Last month, CalSTRS acquired a newly built 1.2M SF warehouse in Mesa, AZ for $167M from Scottsdale-based Marwest Enterprises. The facility, known as Elliot 202, has been pre-leased by Amazon.

Oxford Properties, the real-estate arm of the $90B Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, is reducing its office assets to 20% of its portfolio, more than half of the 44% it made up six years ago.

In the past 12 months, Oxford has sold office properties in Manhattan, Toronto and Boston worth a total of nearly $2.7B and redirected the proceeds to the acquisition of warehouses and life science research facilities.