Barry Sternlicht's Starwood Asset Management has paid $63.8 million combined for two affordable housing complexes in Miami-Dade County, adding 310 income-restricted apartments to its growing Florida portfolio. The firm bought Lafayette Square in Miami's Little River neighborhood for $29.75 million and Magnolia Landing Apartments in Naranja for $34 million, according to property records.
The deals were first reported by Commercial Observer, which detailed the property specifics behind each purchase. Lafayette Square, a 19-story building with 160 units at 150 Northeast 79th Street, sold for roughly $185,900 per apartment and sits on 1.2 acres a block west of Northeast Second Avenue. Magnolia Landing, made up of 20 three-story buildings spread across 4.8 acres at 25881 Southwest 143rd Court near South Dixie Highway, sold for about $226,660 per unit.
Both properties were sold by The Gatehouse Group, a Mansfield, Massachusetts-based developer that built Lafayette Square in 2008 and Magnolia Landing in 2011, per the outlet's reporting. The company appears to have retained ownership of an adjacent 136-unit property near Magnolia Landing, and representatives for both The Gatehouse Group and Starwood did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to the same account.
Financing Follows a Familiar Starwood Pattern
CBRE Capital Partners arranged a $23.8 million Freddie Mac loan to help finance the Magnolia Landing acquisition, the report noted. The structure echoes a deal Starwood closed in February, when it paid $47.3 million for two Low-Income Housing Tax Credit properties totaling 360 units in the Tampa area using $35.4 million in CBRE-placed Freddie Mac financing, as Hoodline previously reported.
The Miami-Dade purchase also fits within a much larger financing push. In April, Starwood Real Estate Income Trust secured a $1.719 billion, 10-year Freddie Mac refinancing package arranged through Walker & Dunlop covering 12,955 workforce and affordable housing units across 52 properties in 10 states, according to Commercial Real Estate News. As of June 30, Starwood Real Estate Income Trust had allocated 24% of its $22.5 billion real estate portfolio to affordable housing assets across 598 properties with a 94% overall occupancy rate, per the trust's own disclosures.
Little River Roots and a Faith-Based Backstory
Lafayette Square carries a longer public history in Miami-Dade County records. The project was originally approved in 2005 as a 160-unit affordable housing development with an estimated total cost of $25.5 million, including $1 million in county surtax funding, according to Miami-Dade County records. It was developed as a joint venture between The Gatehouse Group and BAME Development of South Florida, an affiliate of Greater Bethel A.M.E. Church, with the project intended to spur redevelopment along the 79th Street corridor, the county records show.
Magnolia Landing, meanwhile, operates under the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, with 150 family-sized units — including 70 two-bedroom and 52 three-bedroom apartments — restricted to low-income households, according to Affordable Housing Online. Freddie Mac provided financing tied specifically to the property, underscoring the role of federally backed lending in preserving the rent-restricted units.
A Deepening Crisis Behind the Deal
The acquisitions land amid what local advocates describe as an acute affordability crunch across Miami-Dade. A December 2025 analysis by the University of Florida's Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, cited by Miami Homes for All, found that 50% of all Miami-Dade households are housing cost-burdened, including 90% of renters earning below $50,000 annually. A separate July analysis by JPMorganChase found the region faces a shortage of 90,000 affordable housing units, a gap projected to grow to nearly 116,000 by 2030 as local median household income rose 30% since 2019 while lower-cost housing supply contracted.
Miami was also ranked the least affordable rental market in the country in a May study by WalletHub, which found local renters spend roughly one-third of their gross annual earnings on housing, as reported by NewsRadio WFLA. Under LIHTC regulatory agreements, maximum permissible rents at properties like Magnolia Landing are governed by land-use restrictive agreements that remain binding regardless of ownership changes, though it remains an open question whether Starwood intends to hold these assets for long-term yield or recapitalize them once compliance periods expire.
The purchases add to Starwood's active trading history in Florida residential real estate. In February, the firm's statewide rollup extended to Tampa, and in 2024 it executed a $1.6 billion disposition of 7,300 rental units across 23 Sun Belt properties to Brookfield Properties, according to The Real Deal. That earlier sale included a 444-unit Palm Beach County property, illustrating how frequently the firm cycles assets in and out of its Sun Belt holdings even as it expands its affordable housing footprint in Miami-Dade.
