An apartment company founded by the former owners of multifamily firm JPI has tapped an industry veteran to help lead its expansion in the Sun Belt.
TDI, an investment and operating firm formed by Bobby Page, Ron Ingram, and Brad Taylor, named Brent Ball president and partner. In his new role, Ball is responsible for securing third-party capital, maximizing the value of the company's properties and expanding the firm's focus on providing housing for educators, police offers and other essential workers. TDI said.
The apartment investment firm has $3.7 billion of assets in its portfolio that contains 28 properties in Southern California and North Texas, according to its website.
While the multifamily market in the Sun Belt had a healthy run that extended into the pandemic as people migrated to states including Texas and Florida, the region that stretches coast to coast has been impacted by "a significant acceleration of development activity following a surge of in-migration," according to CoStar data. Markets in the region "have seen a significant slowing in rent growth over the past 12 months," CoStar said in a recent report.
"Downward pressure on rent growth will likely continue into the first half of 2024," according to the CoStar report. "Only five major Sun Belt markets—Houston, Miami, Memphis, Tennessee, Oklahoma City, and Tucson, Arizona—finished the fourth quarter with positive year-over-year rent growth."
TDI tapped Ball to be its president about five months after the trio of TDI founders sold their interest in JPI to Sumitomo Forestry America, a subsidiary of large Japanese firm Sumitomo Forestry Co. When the deal closed, TDI retained ownership of 31 real estate projects.
Most recently, Ball served as senior vice president of asset management for Willow Bridge Property. Ball also worked at Trammell Crow, where he established an asset management function to oversee a $5.5 billion portfolio of apartment assets. Ball also served in several roles, including principal, at Fairfield Residential during his 20 years at the firm.
Middle-Income Housing
Ball, who declined an interview request from CoStar News, said in a statement that TDI has an opportunity "to help serve this middle-income tier of families in all cities throughout Dallas-Fort Worth through the state approved Housing Finance Corporation ("HFC") legislation."
The state HFC legislation gives Texas cities and counties the ability to create an entity to buy properties, exempt those properties from taxes, and allow private companies to build or own developments on them. Dallas Housing Financing Corp., created by the city in 1984, provides tax-exempt mortgage revenue bonds and other support to acquire, construct or substantially rehab apartment housing.
Projects facilitated by Dallas Housing financing provide housing for residents earning 60% or below of the area median family income. The annual area median income for a household in Dallas is $65,400, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's latest American Community Survey. Sixty percent of the area median income is just over $39,000 a year.
"We have a growing housing affordability crisis for moderate-income households that is perpetuating," Ball said.
Ball said TDI has already positioned developments in Anna, Fort Worth and McKinney, Texas, to cater to households of middle-income families.
In all, Ball has more than 35 years of experience investment management, acquisitions and development.
The graduate of the University of Texas also spent seven years prior to Fairfield Residential at Archon Group, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, directing the acquisition, asset management and asset repositioning of the firm's multifamily business line in the West and Southwest.