Antonio Marquez is principal and managing partner at Comunidad Partners, an integrated real estate firm that invests in affordable and workforce housing throughout the Sun Belt.
Affordable Housing Finance recently asked Marquez to discuss a development that changed his life.
Name of development:
Villas del Solamar
Location:
Dallas
Describe the development:
Villas del Solamar was built in 1973 and acquired in 2015 by Comunidad Partners as part of the firm’s strategic efforts to invest in Sun Belt markets exhibiting strong job and income growth, population growth, and constrained workforce housing supply for residents earning between 60% and120% of the area median income. With 212 units and tailored community amenities, Solamar offers high-quality housing for essential, middle-income residents. This group often includes workers such as police officers, firefighters, teachers, health care workers, and the service-sector workforce who are priced out of luxury or market-rate housing near their employers and do not qualify for income-restricted housing.
Role in the project:
Our acquisition strategy for any property is evaluating how we can create long-term value for both investors and residents. With this in mind, we focus on creating a forward-looking plan that can yield high occupancy and retention rates as well as initiatives designed to enhance the property’s value and sustainability footprint. For example, any necessary capital improvements, sustainability measures, and/or developing specific social programs to support residents. For Solamar, our team worked diligently to ensure that the property could benefit from our strategic community building efforts and further our goal of investing in workforce and attainable workforce housing in thriving communities.
Share why this development is meaningful to you:
Villas del Solamar truly embodies Comunidad’s commitment to create more than just multifamily housing—we're building communities for working families that are often left out of other housing opportunities. For example, we’ve established a unique social impact space and transformed it into a functional hub dedicated to resident services. It can support a variety of services, from child care to educational programs, and it is incredibly rewarding to see how these initiatives, tailored to residents' needs through on-hand support at the property level, have been able to foster a sense of belonging and opportunity within the community.
Additionally, enrollment in our free Teladoc virtual health services through Veritas Impact Partners has grown to 83% of residents now enjoying health access. Virtual health care utilization is also continuing to increase, with 17% of occupied units taking advantage of the service benefits for residents that were uninsured or underinsured.
Lesson learned from this development:
Solamar has reinforced our belief that successful affordable housing goes beyond physical structures. Through our Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future’s Certified Organization for Resident Engagement and Services (CORES) certification and Enhanced Residents Service program, we’ve been able to actively engage with residents and provide much-needed services and seen firsthand how our unique approach can dramatically improve quality of life and community cohesion. In fact, across our entire portfolio, we’ve witnessed that households who engage in property-specific social impact programs on average stay eight months longer than households that don't participate—a testament to our understanding of what residents want and being able to support them on their housing journey.
How has this development changed your life?
This acquisition changed my life as it was the transformational turning point for our organization. As pioneers in the impact housing space, it also helped catalyze our growth. There were critics and naysayers in the past that did not believe our investment thesis/strategy would work. However, it was the first of many ‘proof of concept’ investments that legitimized impact as a viable investment strategy. Furthermore, it demonstrated that investing in residents translates into improved property performance and, thus, attractive risk-adjusted returns for investors. It was also the first opportunity where we were able to fully invest across the full spectrum of impact and capital improvements programs including: virtual health care; an after-school program built into a clubhouse; developing a children’s soccer court; barbecues/pergolas; and other community amenities. It’s a true success story as one of our best investments to date, and we are eternally grateful for the opportunity. It has changed our lives and helped pave our destiny as a firm and as a force for good!
