Mesirow Raises $1.2B Target Ceiling For U.S. Multifamily Fund
A Mesirow Financial subsidiary closed a new multifamily fund Monday with more than $1B raised.
Mesirow Institutional Real Estate Direct’s Real Estate Value Fund V raised its hard cap of $1.245B and was closed to ensure sufficient portfolio diversification and investment pacing, the company announced.
The latest fund raised 66% more capital commitments than Mesirow’s last investment vehicle, with more than 70% of the cash coming from repeat clients, Mesirow Institutional Real Estate Direct CEO Alasdair Cripps said in an interview Tuesday.
“We are proud and humbled by the continued support and confidence of our investors as we expand our platform of value-added, risk-balanced multifamily real estate strategies,” Cripps said in a statement.
Chicago-based Mesirow will target value-add multifamily assets across the top 30 U.S. markets, emphasizing acquisitions that have revenue growth potential through cost optimization, space upgrades and shifts in property management.
The renovation strategy includes the addition of amenities like golf simulators or coworking spaces along with updates to the units’ fittings and fixtures, Cripps said.
“Fund V will continue our focus on repositioning underperforming Class-A multifamily assets, acquired at discounts to replacement cost, in high-growth markets where barriers to entry reduce the risk of oversupply,” he said.
The firm, which has $8.5B in assets under management, didn’t offer specific details about the regions it was targeting with the fund. But Cripps said less than 10% of the capital would be deployed in Midwest markets.
Roughly a quarter of the fund's capital has already been deployed across six acquisitions, Cripps said. That includes the 410-unit Preserve at Melrose in San Diego that it purchased for $185M and another in South Florida.
"We're coast to coast on our investments, and we're actively looking in appropriate markets," Cripps said.
Investors have been eyeing apartment buildings as potential profit generators in recent quarters.
The sector was a pandemic-era darling as rents ballooned, but the sentiment shifted to unease as a multiyear construction boom was beginning to come online, threatening to weigh on rent growth and squeeze owners already facing higher operating costs.
But the glut of new deliveries is largely being absorbed by markets — with some notable exceptions like Austin — and multifamily owners and investors are growing increasingly optimistic.
More than 80% of multifamily investors were looking to buy assets in 2025 at the beginning of the year, according to a Berkadia survey of 240 of its largest clients.
