“The Covid-19 pandemic made 2020 a rough year, with rent dropping to $1.67 while occupancy fell and then recovered to 62.5 percent. But 2021 was better: By the year’s end, Encore SoFlo’s occupancy was nearly 94 percent and the rent had climbed to $2.12 a square foot.
In real estate jargon, Encore SoFlo had “stabilized”—in other words, it had filled up, so that it was performing as well as its developer, the Dallas firm Encore Multifamily, had hoped.
It is no coincidence that Encore sold the building in December to Strategic Property Investment, another firm from Dallas. The business model of Encore and many other developers goes like this: They build apartment complexes, do their best to stabilize them, and then sell them to private firms, insurance companies, pension funds, university endowments or other investors on the hunt for a reliable source of income.”