Hunt buys $209m military housing portfolio

Real Estate group Hunt Companies has bought Forest City Enterprises' military family housing business, which includes roughly 15,000 military housing units.

Hunt acquired all equity interests and service contracts for more than 30 unique military housing communities spread across a slew of US-located military installations under the banner of Forest City Military Communities (FCMC). The transaction is valued at $208.8 million.

The company has said it “will retain the vast majority of FCMC management team and on-site associates, combining the existing senior management of both Hunt and FCMC to create a deeper senior leadership team and better server Hunt's residents and partners alike”. 

Housing assets included in the deal are located at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs; the Air Force Southern Group (Arnold AFB in Tennessee, Joint Base Charleston and Shaw AFB in South Carolina, and Keesler AFB in Mississippi), the Navy and Marine bases on the islands of Oahu and Kauai in Hawaii; housing associated with Kitsap, Whidbey and Everett Naval installations in Washington State; and six individual military housing communities divided amoungst the Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois, Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane in Indiana, and Naval Support Academy Mid-South in Tennessee.

Hunt has been investing in privatised military housing since 1996, when it was authorised through the Military Housing Privatisation Initiative (MHPI) in the US. Once the sale is complete, Hunt will own about 52,000 military housing units, 32,000 of which it will actively manage.