Société immobilière Bélanger has made its biggest ever acquisition, investing $143 million to acquire 1,057 multifamily units in 39 buildings from Logisco in the Quebec City region.
The transaction gives the 17-year-old, Quebec City-based Bélanger more than 3,000 multiresidential units that it owns and manages in the provincial capital area.
“Logisco is a really good owner, and they take care of their properties,” Société Gestion Bélanger president François Bélanger told RENX. “They’re well-managed and well-maintained with good tenants, so we were confident in buying from them. We respect them as a landlord, so we figured it was a good opportunity for our group to expand in Quebec City.”
Several groups were interested in acquiring the properties, including some from outside Quebec City.
“We’re glad to keep ownership here in the Quebec City region in a family business,” Bélanger said.
The purchase of the buildings, which are in suburbs that include Lévis and Loretteville, is being financed through CMHC loans.
Logisco sells to finance development
Most are three or four storeys. The biggest property has 70 units and only one has an elevator.
“It’s really classic wood and brick, with 20 or 25 units,” he said of the composition of the portfolio.
Logisco decided to sell the buildings because “they want to accelerate their development,” Bélanger said. “They want to increase their construction capabilities and focus on larger buildings, larger complexes. They want to build more, and these were older assets and smaller assets and maybe made less sense to them.”
Logisco currently has a number of multires projects under construction:
- Tria at 216 Louis-IX St. in Loretteville, will have 248 units in three stages;
- District GC will have 263 units in a 12-storey building at 5350 Guillaume-Couture Blvd. in downtown Lévis;
- Hélios, will consist of 146 units in three seven-storey buildings at 1061 de L’École St. in Lévis;
- and the final phase of Le KOS, consisting of five, six-storey buildings with 349 units, is being built at 2855 Coursol St. in Quebec City.
Bélanger says the buildings it has acquired from Logisco are fully leased, with very high renewal rates. “For us, they’re fairly easy to manage because they’re well-maintained and well-rented.”
No major renovations to units are planned, unless they’re necessary and not for aesthetic reasons.
“We try to be lean and maintain full occupancy,” he said. “We’ll have a regular maintenance schedule because we don’t want the buildings to get rundown over the years, but there’s no plans for any major work.”
Before launching Société immobilière Bélanger in 2008, Bélanger worked for five years as a residential real estate broker in the Quebec City area.
Bélanger also seeking development sites
While Bélanger has to date acquired and managed its multifamily properties, “we’re in the early stages of being a developer,” Bélanger said. “We want to start building because there’s such a shortage of rentals, we think it would be a really good time to move into development.”
Bélanger hopes to start building this year and is looking for sites in the Quebec City area, taking advantage of CMHC-financing programs for low-income and energy-efficient developments,
He is envisaging basic wood and brick apartment buildings, “not huge concrete buildings with common areas. We won’t go into anything too fancy or too big to start and we would want to keep the rents affordable.
“There’s a lack of apartments on the market and I think we will be well-positioned to start building.”
