NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--One of the most established operators in the single-family rental sector, Lafayette Real Estate (“Lafayette”), has joined forces with one of its upstarts in Guardian Residential (“Guardian”), to create a unique investment platform that focuses solely on the acquisition and development of newly constructed homes for the purpose of long-term rentals.
The new firm, known as Lafayette Communities, will be led by Thibault Adrien, current CEO of Lafayette Real Estate, and Dennis Cisterna III, current CEO of Guardian Residential. Both are long time industry executives in the single-family rental space and had sought a productive partnership for the past year. Adrien commented, “We are very excited about this new partnership and the synergies between Lafayette and Guardian. Dennis and the Guardian team bring exceptional origination and pre-underwriting skills while the Lafayette platform will provide strong final underwriting and property management capabilities. We think we can build a very scalable investment company dedicated to the build-for-rent space.
Lafayette Communities is opening its first rental community, the 51-unit Preserve at Pine Grove, in the Riverview submarket of Tampa in early June. The community will consist of affordably priced 3 and 4 bedroom detached homes with modern features such as granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.
The firm has additional communities under development in Florida and is planning expansion into markets in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee before the end of the year. Cisterna noted, “Lafayette Communities is the next evolution in the single-family investment space. We are able to scale our business much faster, while operating our portfolio more efficiently, than traditional operators in the sector.”
As distressed inventory, long seen as the primary source of single-family rental operators, has waned, operators are looking for creative ways to continue to expand their holdings beyond consolidation of its competitors. In order to achieve desirable risk-adjusted returns, Lafayette Communities partners with large public and private homebuilders throughout the nation who are able to deliver homes at below market pricing due to the volume and speed of this investment strategy.
Lafayette Communities also prides itself on adding something sorely missing from the housing market – new workforce housing. “It’s unfortunate we aren’t building enough homes in this country post-recession to fulfill the demand in the market,” said Adrien. “Even worse is the sharp decline in the development of entry-level housing. Even though we are developing these communities as rentals in the short term, we feel adding affordable supply to markets is very beneficial to satiate long-term demand for workforce housing.”
About Lafayette Real Estate
Founded in 2011 by Thibault Adrien, Lafayette RE LLC is a New York-based private equity firm focused on the single family homes asset class in the U.S. Lafayette's first two funds implemented a distressed acquisition strategy, focusing on foreclosure sales exclusively. Brandywine Homes USA was launched in 2014 as Lafayette’s fully owned property management arm. In 2016 Lafayette Lending began investing in the fix & flip lending space generating attractive risk adjusted returns. It is currently participating in the consolidation of the SFR market, buying under scaled stabilized single family homes portfolios, and scaling further its private lending business. Lafayette currently manages three funds on behalf of its investors, invested across 1,800 single family homes, 200 fix & flip loans and 150 vacant land lots. Visit www.lafayette-re.com for additional information.
About Guardian Residential
Guardian Residential is a private real estate investment firm established to capitalize on a unique set of conditions in the U.S. housing market via the acquisition of single-family residential properties. Built on a foundation of steadfast ethics, Guardian Residential is dedicated to “Investing in the American Community” through the principles of institutional data-driven investment analysis with exceptional boots-on-the-ground operational experience and meticulous asset management to deliver strong, risk-adjusted returns. Visit www.guardiansfr.com for more information.
