Continental Properties Closes $203M Multifamily Development Fund

Continental Properties has closed its fourth real estate development fund with $203 million in capital commitments, providing financing for suburban rental housing aimed at middle-income households.

Continental Properties Real Estate Development Fund IV will pay for 10 to 15 suburban multifamily communities under the company’s Springs Apartments and Authentix Apartments brands. The projects come from a pipeline that has already cleared the company’s first round of investment committee approval.

The firm focuses on middle-income renters, a part of the market it says builders have largely left behind.

“Multifamily construction starts have declined dramatically since the peak in 2022, and much of the development we’ve seen in recent years has been focused exclusively on the luxury segment at the expense of the middle market,” said Jim Schloemer, co-founder and CEO of Continental Properties.

Schloemer, who recently served as chairman of the National Multifamily Housing Council, pointed to both a shortage of supply and the cost gap between renting and owning a home.

“That widening gap between supply and demand, combined with a historically wide affordability gap between renting and owning, gives us real conviction in Development Fund IV’s strategy of building workforce-attainable suburban housing in under-supplied markets,” he said.

Including the new fund, Continental has raised about $2 billion across its private real estate funds since late 2019.