UPDATED 5/5/25 3pm
Willowood Group has become the latest upstart investor to feel pain after getting into the Texas multifamily investment game when debt was cheap.Â
The Dallas-based company that was founded in 2019 defaulted on a $39.4 million mortgage provided by Newmarq Capital Finance for the purchase of the Oasis Apartments at 9690 Forest Lane in Dallas, according to Roddy’s Foreclosure Listing Service.Â
Managing partner Robert Tobolowsky said the firm figured out a solution that will prevent the property from being auctioned Tuesday at Dallas County Courthouse.
The complex was built in 1971. It was valued at $62.4 million for property tax purposes this year, according to the Dallas Central Appraisal District.Â
Willowood purchased the 506-unit apartment complex from Concord Capital Partners, which said it sold the property for $54.5 million, or about $108,000 per unit, after spending $2.25 million renovating the property.Â
Willowood specializes in apartment complexes with more than 150 units and owns about 1,500 units, according to its website. Losing ownership of Oasis Apartments would reduce its holdings by about one third.Â
The firm, which is headed by Robert Tobolowsky and John Bowden, is one of many multifamily investors who scooped up aging Texas apartment complexes when interest rates were low with plans to fix them up and sell them off at a profit. Increased interest rates and ballooning construction costs made those plans much tougher to execute.Â
Multifamily foreclosures started piling on in mid-2023 for firms like Tides Equities, GVA Investments and Rise48 Equity as the economic cycle burst the multifamily bubble. Many of their distressed properties have returned to lenders; for Tides, lenders are taking it a step further and going after the principals personally for unpaid debts. Â
This story was updated to include a comment from Willowood, which said it worked out a deal to avoid foreclosure.
