Avenue Living has surpassed $8.5 billion in assets under management following a record-setting year driven by more than $1.2 billion in acquisitions. 

The Calgary firm has added $730 million in multifamily residential assets and $500 million in self-storage properties for fiscal year-to-date, underscoring its aggressive expansion strategy.

Building on this momentum, Avenue Living plans to continue acquisitions in Canada and the U.S., with a focus on workforce housing and high-demand storage markets. The company’s long-term strategy emphasizes operational efficiency, stable cash flow and scalable platforms, prioritizing sustainable growth.

It was founded in 2006 with the purchase of 24 rental units in Brooks, Alta., for just over $3 million.

“What we’ve tried to build is a transgenerational platform that focuses on real assets, real results and real operations,” founder and CEO Anthony Giuffre told RENX. “There is no desired exit. There is no growth curve that we’re looking for. We focus our growth based on the robustness and the successes, sophistication and efficiency of our platform.

“When we see opportunity, if it continues to provide value-add to the various levels of stakeholders, we continue to look at those opportunities and in some cases seize upon them. But outside of that, no big plan to be a particular size. We’re just going to keep one foot in front of the other and keep walking the organization forward year over year.

“When we think of Avenue Living, we think of the platform. Since the inception of the organization, we've led with an operations-first mentality . . we’re very deliberate, very focused on all stakeholders, starting with the customer and working our way through all stakeholder groups."

Overview of Avenue Living's acquisitions

The acquisitions have involved:

• Multifamily: Avenue Living’s workforce housing multifamily fund acquired over 3,580 residential units across markets such as Iowa and Kentucky. The platform exceeds 21,500 units across Canada and the U.S. solidifying its position as a Top-10 institutional owner-operator.
• Self-Storage: The MMSP (Mini Mall Storage Properties) fund acquired approximately 1.8 million square feet in U.S. markets, including Atlanta and New Orleans. This U.S. Sunbelt expansion reinforces the diversity of MMSP’s platform, which has surpassed 10 million square feet and 70,000 storage units across Canada and the U.S. In just five years, Mini Mall is a Top-20 storage owner-operator in North America.

As of August 29, Avenue Living reported nearly $600 million in annual recurring revenue (run rate).

Jason Jogia, co-founder and chief investment officer, described this as a very robust year for acquisitions, with a primary focus in the U.S.

“The focal point has been finding assets that are catering to a certain type of clientele that we’ve grown to be focused in on, that are more community-centric than they are individual assets and really continuing to increase the performance of the overall portfolio,” he said.

“The U.S. multifamily space is a celebrated industry. A lot of the assets that we find out there tend to be quite improved, they’ve got quite a bit of amenity. The size of the suites are much larger than what we find in the Canadian construct. So that was a very good opportunity for us to diversify our portfolio geographically but continue to hold onto assets that are catered to our workforce housing segment that we focus in on.”

Hunt is on for larger multifamily assets

Jogia said about 25 per cent of Avenue Living’s multifamily portfolio is in the U.S., where it has been operating for seven years.

“We’re continuing to look at assets in the U.S. as well as Canada. We are looking at larger communities where we get the efficiency of property and asset management. We're looking at markets that tend to have good, stable growth patterns over the course of very volatile times,” Jogia explained. 

“When we look at our assets in the U.S., for example, where you talk about the great financial crisis, or the COVID pandemic, and hiking cycle (interest rates), these are assets that continue to have good population growth and great strong fundamentals of performance within our sector in the overall economies.

"These are not necessarily your primary U.S. markets that people think about when they think about U.S. but they’d be markets that have millions of people in the trading area . . . very sticky profile of tenants, really diversified industries within them and they tend to support our business platform.”

The multifamily growth included about 20 properties.

Self-storage growth focuses on U.S.

Giuffre said self-storage is primarily focused on Sunbelt markets, particularly Atlanta, New Orleans and Memphis. 

“These are flagship markets for us with millions of people in their trading areas,” he said.

Jogia said there are several drivers of self-storage these days -  rising housing costs mean less space for people. Consumerism and e-commerce are increasing. We're also in an era of physical asset transfer due to generational wealth transition.

Per capita, storage is under-supplied in both countries, Jogia added. Interest comes from institutional investors and private equity, with firms like Avenue Living aggregating assets to operate more efficiently. 

When it comes to multifamily, Jogia said the cost of money and space is rising, making home ownership less attainable. Renters seek well-managed, clean, reliable assets with amenities. They don’t need to be brand new, but they must be well maintained.

The rental market is organically growing, as home ownership rates decline on both sides of the border. This is fuelled by international and interprovincial migration in Canada, and state-level migration in the U.S.

Avenue Living also has more than 50,000 acres of farmland as assets.

Investment-grade debt rating

In May, Avenue Living (2014) LP received an investment-grade debt rating by Morningstar DBRS and issued $250 million of five-year unsecured notes in its inaugural bond offering. Since then, MMSP achieved an upsized $500-plus million syndicated acquisition facility, while Avenue Living launched a global $350-million expansion offering. The expansion offering is already oversubscribed one month ahead of schedule, the company reports.

“It's a balance like any firm of our nature of debt and equity. We’ve had great access to capital partners like Tier One banks across Canada and the U.S. that have been able to facilitate our need of debt in order to purchase assets on a conservative basis,” Jogia explained.

“Then our equity fund flows continue to flow in through the alternative investment market. Ultra-high-net-worth, accredited-type investors through just long-standing relationships. I would say that’s been kind of the big fuel to our continued fire here in terms of the organization."

Jogia said Avenue Living successfully oversubscribed its equity raise at an investment-grade rating, a "very novel" occurrence: "There’s not a lot of players within the multifamily space - actually there are none - that are rated investment grade or rated at all today, and that gave us some great access to liquidity to continue to play into our asset plans to diversify our multifamily vehicle.”