Lennar switched land banks for 423 homesites in the Keys Gate residential subdivision in Homestead in a $24 million deal.
JEN Partners, a New York-based firm that’s served as a land bank for Lennar, sold the lots to DW Partners, also based in New York, according to records. The purchase price was $23.98 million.
As part of the deal, Lennar terminated its purchase option for the homesites with JEN and signed a purchase option agreement with DW Partners that’s valid until 2031, records show.
The lots are roughly south of Southwest 344th Street and east of Southwest 162nd Avenue.
DW Partners, led by David Warren and Robert Clark, is an alternative asset manager founded in 2009, according to its website.
Miami-based Lennar, the second largest homebuilder nationwide and the biggest in south Miami-Dade County, heavily relies on land banks to secure development sites years before it’s ready to start building homes on them. The strategy allows the publicly traded Lennar to carry the cost of the land ownership off its balance sheet, freeing up its cash flow for developing homes, experts have said.
Aside from JEN, Lennar’s other land bank partners include Scottsdale, Arizona-based Garrett Development and New York-based TPG Angelo Gordon. This year, the homebuilder also spun off Millrose Properties, its own publicly traded land bank.
Lennar is led by Stuart Miller and Jon Jaffe. Jaffe will retire from the firm this year.
Locking in development sites in advance is also advantageous for Lennar in Miami-Dade due to the county’s low supply of buildable sites. The south county area is the only remaining part of Miami-Dade with enough land for single-family and townhome communities.
Over the past five years, developers have rushed to south Miami-Dade, scooping up sites and filing new project applications. Lennar has outpaced them all, completing nearly 70 percent of the homes finished in the area since 2020, according to Colliers Research. It also is developing 60 percent of the pipeline.
Also within the massive Keys Gate subdivision, Lennar filed a proposal in 2022 for 1,335 homes and a golf course on 350 acres.
Others with stakes in Keys Gate include Miami-based Mast Capital, which paid $50.8 million for a 292-townhome complex in 2021. The property is at 1140 Southeast 24th Road.
Others developing in south Miami-Dade include Arlington, Texas-based D.R. Horton, the nation’s biggest homebuilder. In Florida City, it proposed a 108-townhome complex at 530 Southwest Third Avenue, 354 Southwest Seventh Street and two adjacent lots.
David Martin’s Coconut Grove-based Terra wants to redevelop a portion of the South Dade Government Center at 10710, 10750 and 10800 Southwest 211th Street in Cutler Bay with a 724-unit Live Local Act project. The first phase would consist of a pair of eight-story buildings with about 362 units and 458 parking spaces.
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