Tower Capital arranged $47.4 million in non-recourse construction financing for Village at Mayfair, a 217-unit Build-to-Rent community in New Braunfels, Texas.
The BTR community is being developed by Empire Group of Companies (Empire Group) and built by Austin, Texas-based general contractor, Legacy MCS. The project will be situated on nearly 20 acres within the 1,900-acre Mayfair master-planned community located roughly 35 miles north of San Antonio and 40 miles south of Austin.
“Tower Capital was able to secure the debt fund financing for Village at Mayfair despite persistent challenging market conditions,” said Tower Capital’s Kyle McDonough, Managing Partner and Co-Founder. “Many lenders have halted funding construction loans in recent months, but Tower was able to get lenders comfortable with the project financing and secure multiple competitive term sheets for our client.”
The Village at Mayfair BTR community project is Empire Group’s 12th single-family build-to-rent project financed in partnership with Tower Capital. Empire Group plans to build cottage-style single-family BTR homes in a gated community within Midtown. Each home will have an average unit size of 1,023 square feet and will offer some level of private patio or yard space. The units will feature solid surface quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances, premium kitchen backsplashes, full-size washers and dryers, and upgraded smart-home features and technology.
New Braunfels is the third fastest-growing large city with a population of more than 50,000 in the U.S. The overall Mayfair MPC is slated for 6,000 residential units consisting of single family, multifamily, townhomes and Build-to-Rent. Empire Group’s BTR residences will be located in the initial phase of Midtown Village, joining six national single-family builders expected to offer a mix of housing options in Mayfair’s first neighborhood.
“Although we are in various stages of development, lease-up and operations on more than 15 single-family build-to-rent projects in the Arizona market, Mayfair is our third project in the rapidly growing Texas market,” said Randy Grudzinski, partner at the Empire Group of Companies. “We are thrilled to work with Tower Capital to bring this emerging residential asset class to one of the fastest growing and most dynamic markets in the country. Mayfair will be the next to build of our three build-to-rent projects currently in the works in the Austin-San Antonio metroplex (Hutto, New Braunfels and San Marcos).”
Research by RentCafe shows there are more than 45,400 Build-to-Rent houses currently under construction. BTR homes experienced their most successful year on record in 2023, when a total of 27,500 houses for rent were completed, 75% more than in 2022. Roughly 68,000 rental homes have been built in the last five years, equating to 41% of the total number of build-to-rent homes now available, notes RentCafe.
Tower Capital continues to leverage its extensive financing expertise in the single-family BTR sector to source options for sponsors to meet their goals and objectives. Tower Capital has closed more than $1.6 billion in BTR construction financing and joint venture equity encompassing more than 7,500 units across 41 Build-to-Rent communities. The firm’s pipeline of BTR projects spans multiple states including in Arizona, Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, Colorado and Indiana.
