There’s blood in the water, and it’s coming from Jon Venetos.
The founder of Dallas-based Lurin Capital has been bleeding assets since April, when lender Acore Capital Management foreclosed on a dozen Lurin-owned assets in Florida.
Acore filed six lawsuits last week asking for judgments totalling $80.7 million, Venetos’ payment guaranties, plus other default-related expenses, court records show.
The lender claims Venetos personally guaranteed the $394.4 million he borrowed; Acore alleges his liability was triggered when he defaulted on the loans and when he allowed mechanics’ liens to be placed on the properties. Lurin Capital didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The guaranties were on loans tied to three Texas properties and 12 Florida properties. The Florida portfolio started being sold at foreclosure auctions in April. The loans tied to the properties totalled $383.6 million.
Venetos is also fighting a recent lawsuit from Select Securities Europe, a lender from Luxembourg that claims he defaulted on 15 loans totaling $40.5 million.
Venetos launched Lurin Capital with his wife Ashley after he was axed by hedge fund Citadel. He told a podcast in 2022 that Lurin builds on his family’s 60 years of experience in multifamily real estate.
He explained the pivot from finance: “The opportunity to extract outsize returns with a relatively manageable amount of risk was far greater in real estate.”
The Venetoses launched Lurin in 2016 among a wave of upstart real estate operators who planned to make money by purchasing Class B apartment complexes, updating them, raising rents and selling them at a profit.
Lurin’s website says the firm owns 46 properties across five states, but the list includes assets that have faced foreclosure.
Interest rates threw sand in the gears for many of them, increasing debt service on their floating-rate loans and raising construction costs. At the same time, Texas, a hotspot for value-add multifamily operators, was absorbing a historic wave of apartment development, causing rental rates and occupancy levels to fall.
As a result, experts anticipate a wave of multifamily distress in Texas, where about $19 billion in CMBS loans tied to multifamily is set to mature in the next five years.
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“Value-add” investor faces $40M default after losing 12 properties
“Value-add” investor faces foreclosure on $383M in multifamily loans
Texas multifamily distress just getting started
