Ortsac Capital Group has acquired the Ventura Pointe apartment complex in Pembroke Pines for $52.5 million, a 5.6 percent decrease from its previous sale price six years ago.
The transaction comes as South Florida’s multifamily housing market faces slower growth and higher interest rates than during the recent post-pandemic boom. Ortsac, led by Bobby and Sofia Castro, purchased the 206-unit property at 7850 Pasadena Boulevard from Dallas-based Lloyd Jones, according to public records and data from Vizzda. The purchase price averages $254,854 per unit.
Ortsac assumed an existing $38.6 million loan from MetLife Real Estate Lending and refinanced it as a Fannie Mae loan, increasing the total financing to $45 million.
Ventura Pointe was completed in 2018 on nearly 10 acres and includes two five-story buildings and two four-story buildings. Eastwind Development of Palm Beach Gardens built the complex.
Lloyd Jones, under CEO Christopher Finlay, had bought Ventura Pointe for $55.6 million in 2019. Since 1990, Lloyd Jones has developed, owned, or managed about $1.2 billion in multifamily properties.
Ortsac is a private family office based in Fort Lauderdale that manages over $700 million in multifamily assets and other commercial real estate investments. The firm is also operated by members of the Castro family’s next generations. Bobby Castro describes himself as a self-made entrepreneur; he and Sofia previously founded Bankers Healthcare Group before selling it and now run Stack and Rack, a three-day bootcamp focused on multifamily investment education.
In recent years Ortsac has sold several large apartment complexes in South Florida: In 2021 it sold Lakeview Flats in Tamarac for $69 million and Golfview Flats in Sunrise for $15 million.
South Florida saw rapid growth in its rental market after the onset of the pandemic due to an influx of new residents from out-of-state areas; this led to record demand and high rent increases across the region. However, following this surge developers built many new projects—resulting last year in about 18,600 newly completed units—and demand has since cooled as fewer people have relocated to the area.
This oversupply contributed to slower leasing activity and falling rents: According to Realtor.com data cited for October, median asking rents across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties declined by three percent compared with one year earlier (https://www.realtor.com/research/october-2024-rent/).
Although the Federal Reserve reduced its benchmark rate four times over this year and last year after making eleven hikes through 2022–23 (https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/openmarket.htm), many landlords have struggled with refinancing loans or servicing floating-rate debt due to tighter lending conditions; some lenders have paused issuing new loans while negotiating extensions or forbearance agreements with borrowers facing challenges.
Discounted sales like Ortsac’s deal are becoming more common throughout South Florida’s apartment sector. For example: In September Waterton Residential sold Solena West Miami—a 427-unit complex—for $111 million at a discount compared with its prior sale price; last year Rreef Property Trust sold Marela Apartments in Pembroke Pines for nine percent less than what it paid two years earlier.
