A Philadelphia-based investment firm has spent $26 million to acquire an apartment community east of the Mall at Millenia – the third apartment complex in Orlando’s Millenia submarket to sell this year.
GoldOller Real Estate Investments paid $130,000 per unit on Nov. 5 for the 200-unit community called The Isles at East Millenia, located at 1980 Lake Fountain Dr., Orlando.
“We’re extremely bullish on the Orlando market,” co-founder Richard Oller told GrowthSpotter after a previous purchase in the area. “We’re consistently looking to expand our presence in Orlando.”
Billed as being located “minutes away from Universal Studios and International Drive,” The Isles at East Millenia is a collection of 10 two- and three-story apartment buildings surrounding a central pond. Located just north of Americana Boulevard, it has a clubhouse with a fitness center and a pool, as well as a dog park.
According to Apartments.com, it has one- and two-bedroom units ranging from 600 to 1,140 square feet that rent for $1,260 to $1,640 a month.
This year, the Orange County Property Appraiser assessed the complex’s value at nearly $21.7 million, a drop from $24.5 million in 2024 and $30 million in 2023. It previously sold for $26 million in 2019, according to the property appraiser, and for $12.7 million in 2015. GoldOller assumed the 2019 mortgage from the seller; and the lender, Walker & Dunlop, raised the principal amount to $24.4 million.
In April 2022, the complex was the site of a fire that heavily damaged 12 apartments and injured three people. An Orange County Sheriff’s deputy helped pull a baby out of a burning third-floor apartment during the fire, which occurred about 4 a.m. on a Saturday.
The new owner of the complex, GoldOller, was founded in 2008 in Philadelphia by Richard Oller and his partner, Jeffery Goldstein. The investment firm owns and operates a portfolio of more than 40,000 rental units spanning from New York to Florida and across to Texas. In Orlando, it owns The Club at Millenia, an apartment complex near The Isles at East Millenia. It also owns another apartment complex called The Isle located at 5224 Long Rd. in northwest Orlando, for which it paid $26.5 million in 2019.
Also in 2019, it spent $42.75 million to acquire the Bonita Fountains apartment community about a mile southwest of the Mall at Millenia.
In Florida, GoldOller also owns apartment communities in Gainesville, Jacksonville, Port Orange and St. Petersburg.
This is the third apartment community in the Millenia submarket to sell this year, demonstrating that Orlando’s multifamily market is picking up steam after experiencing a dip in investment activity in 2023 and 2024.
In August, Los Angeles-based April Housing, a Blackstone portfolio company that specializes in the creation and preservation of affordable housing, paid Maitland-based Concord Management Company $174.8 million, or $208,095 per unit, for The Villages on Millenia Apartments. The 840-unit, mixed-income multifamily community, located south of The Mall at Millenia, offers both market-rate and affordable one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom apartments.
M2 at Millenia sold for $86.5 million. (Photo provided by JLL)
Also in August, the multifamily community M2 at Millenia, located directly south of The Mall at Millenia, sold for $86.5 million. Philadelphia-based Independence Realty Trust paid a joint venture between Dania Beach-based BLD Group and Miami Beach-based JSB Capital Group $214,640 per unit for the 403-unit community.
The Millenia area is in the South Orlando submarket, which has the second-fastest pace of investment activity in the past 12 months in metro Orlando, said Lisa McNatt, Director of Market Analytics at CoStar Group. Located on the western edge of that submarket, the Millenia area contains a high concentration of top-tier properties clustered near Class A office and retail developments. Those achieve the highest rents in the larger submarket, and capture most of the renter demand there, she said.
Across the broader Orlando market, multifamily sales volume for the trailing 12-month period through mid-November is $2.4 billion, McNatt said. Multifamily sales volume in the market in 2022 was over $6 billion, but fell off a cliff in 2023 to barely more than $1.5 billion.
Insurance costs have helped drive a steep decline in multifamily investment compared to 2021 and 2022, McNatt said. Active buyers are focusing on proven locations and stabilized assets, which are easier to finance.
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at Newsroom@GrowthSpotter.com or (407) 420-6261. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook and LinkedIn.