HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – The Finger Companies, a Houston multifamily firm led by legendary apartment magnate Marvy A. Finger – has sold 20 garden-style and mid-rise apartments for $2 billion.
Since he launched his company in 1958, Finger retained ownership and management of nearly every apartment project he has developed. This is an increasing rare approach to the apartment business where multifamily developers build projects, lease them up and sell to investors when the apartment community has achieved “stabilized” occupancy.
The Finger portfolio was acquired by a venture led by Greystar multifamily organization.
Finger Employees Will Be Retained
Mindful of his long-time employees, Mr. Finger said the new venture agreed to retain all of Finger’s on-site employees
“Today’s announcement is a direct reflection of the talented and devoted family of long-term employees who have consistently upheld the highest standards in the industry,” said the Finger Companies Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer Marvy Finger. “The agreement to sell part of our portfolio to the venture spearheaded by Greystar will allow that legacy to continue uninterrupted.”
Finger was represented by Scott Galloway, Dustin Selzer and Roberto Casas of the JLL Capital Markets Investment Sales Advisory team.
“Marvy is one of the true icons of the multi-housing industry,” said Scott Galloway, Executive Managing Director of JLL Capital Markets. “These assets not only come with prime locations, but they also come with the highest quality product offerings and the best management team in the business. They perfectly complement Greystar’s national portfolio.”
Greystar, based in Charleston, S.C., manages a portfolio of 750,000 units.
Marvy Finger was a Pioneer in Downtown
In addition to the 20 properties that were sold, Finger has developed high-rise multifamily properties, including the Museum Tower on Montrose Boulevard and the One Park Place tower in downtown across from the Discovery Green park.
Finger was a pioneer in developing downtown multifamily, recognizing the residential potential of the Central Business District. Today, over 10,000 people live in downtown Houston.
Mr. Finger, 85, has a reputation for spotting locations with potential for becoming hot spots.
Finger started working on the downtown tower in 2005 after noticing that other cities had viable downtown apartment markets.
In a 2018 interview with Realty News Report, Finger described the downtown deal: “I’m building apartments in a dozen cities in the U. S. — major cities like Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and Minneapolis. I’m exposed to all these different major cities, and everyone has a viable downtown where a lot of people are living — ownership and rentals. But nothing new residentially had been built in downtown Houston for a while. Houstonians were not living downtown. People were living in the suburbs. But Museum Tower (in Montrose) had been so successful, and Houston’s population was over 5 million, I said to myself it would be possible. There was nothing new in downtown Houston, and with 5 million people in greater Houston, I knew I can find 340 people out of 5 million who will want to live downtown. I was able to sell that pitch to lenders at the time. I decided to build rental units in downtown Houston.”
The major transaction with Greystar is not the end of the road for Marvy Finger.
“This is a major step towards achieving our goal of maintaining a certain level of excellence for which we are known,” said Finger. “We are perfectly positioned to do exciting new projects that will propel the company far into the future.”
Oct. 20, 2021 Realty News Report Copyright 2021
For more about Texas real estate, check out the book Houston 2020: America’s Boom Town – An Extreme Close Up by Ralph Bivins. Available on Amazon http://tiny.cc/4a2g6y
Houston 2020 Ebook version https://tinyurl.com/4xm7z8b5
File: Marvy Finger Sells Apartments for $2 Billion
File: Houston Multifamily. Marvy Finger Sells Apartments to Greystar