Skyline Apartment REIT has acquired two newly built properties, in Mascouche, Que. and Parksville, B.C., in recent weeks as it methodically works to strengthen a portfolio that already offers considerable prospects for revenue growth.

Guelph, Ont.-based Skyline Apartment REIT purchased a 106-unit apartment at 445 rue Sicard in Mascouche for $36.5 million. The 10-storey building is part of the multi-phase Quartier 7 development built and managed by Danam Lacourse.

Skyline Apartment REIT entered Mascouche in August 2020 with the $19-million purchase of the first phase of Quartier 7, a 73-unit building at 405 rue Sicard. It now owns seven properties in the Montreal suburb that’s home to more than 50,000 people.

“They’re an excellent developer that we met quite a few years ago and we've got a very good relationship with them,” Skyline Apartment REIT president Matthew Organ told RENX. “While the complex is being completed, because it's being completed in stages, they're overseeing the management of the whole complex, including the leasing of the buildings as they come online.”

The Quartier 7 and Parksville acquisitions

Skyline Living, Skyline Group of Companies’ property management division, will likely take over that role at some point. The current situation works well for now because Danam Lacourse is completing the rest of the development.

“We treat it as a forward sale,” Organ explains. “(Danam Lacourse) builds it, it leases it and we purchase it upon a leasing threshold.” 

Quartier 7 is in a residential area opposite the Mascouche train station, a 45-minute drive from downtown Montreal.

The property offers a fitness centre, a multi-purpose room, a games area, heated outdoor swimming pools, furnished outdoor spaces and electric vehicle charging stations.

Skyline Apartment REIT also acquired two four-storey buildings with 130 units at 377 and 385 Moilliet St. S. in Parksville, B.C. for $48.8 million from District Group. The properties will be managed by Skyline Living. 

The property is the second phase of the Merewood Apartments development. The REIT purchased Phase 1, comprised of two four-storey buildings with 122 units at 411 and 423 Despard Ave. W., from District Group in August 2022. 

The price for that acquisition was $41 million and that property is also now managed by Skyline Living.

Disposition of properties

Skyline Apartment REIT is operated and managed by Skyline Group of Companies, which acquires, develops and manages real estate properties and clean energy assets and offers them as private alternative investment products: Skyline Apartment REIT, Skyline Clean Energy Fund, Skyline Industrial REIT and Skyline Retail REIT. 

With these latest acquisitions, Skyline Apartment REIT owns 240 properties with 21,867 residential units in 57 communities in seven provinces.

Skyline Apartment REIT is selling some older properties in smaller markets and using the proceeds for new acquisitions. It has offloaded these Ontario properties this year:

• a five-storey building with 48 units in Haileybury, to exit the market;
• a three-storey building with 49 units in Timmins;
• and three properties with 308 units in Cornwall, to exit the market.

Skyline REIT isn’t embarking on a mass exodus from such properties, however. Organ said there can be great mark-to-market growth on older buildings so it’s still putting capital into them because they’re good income producers.

“Old apartment buildings don't necessarily have the nostalgia that an old century home does,” Organ said. “We're trying to have a good product offering and provide good housing to the bracket of tenants that we're after.”

Acquisitions and new developments

While Skyline Apartment REIT may previously have purchased apartment buildings almost anywhere in Canada as long as the numbers worked, now it’s primarily looking at acquiring new product if it’s outside of Ontario.

The REIT began doing more development on its own, as well as working with trusted development partners across Canada, five years ago.

Skyline Apartment REIT is also looking to expand into secondary and tertiary markets offering growth potential within a three-hour radius of its base in Guelph because properties in those areas are easier to manage.

Ground was broken for Residences at Silvercreek, a three-building, four-storey complex with 187 units on Prince of Wales Drive in Collingwood, Ont., in May. It will increase the town’s purpose-built rental supply by one-third upon its slated completion in the spring of 2026.

Residences at Silvercreek will include a 4,800-square-foot central amenity building with an indoor kitchen, fireplace, games room and gym, as well as an outdoor terrace, hot tub and pickleball court.

Skyline Apartment REIT is adding to its Sarnia, Ont. portfolio with 118 new units as well as its London, Ont. holdings, where 72 units are being developed. Both projects are expected to complete in spring 2025.

The trust also donated land for a 32-unit supportive housing building at 10 Shelldale Cres. in Guelph that was completed in June. Kindle Communities is managing the property, which will house and provide support for people who’ve experienced chronic homelessness.

Future growth opportunities

Skyline Apartment REIT has land in the Ontario communities of Trenton and Lindsay that it plans to start developing in the next year or two, according to Organ.

“We're not in Toronto proper, Vancouver proper or Montreal proper on the apartment side, but we've found very good success in being in some of these smaller centres,” Organ said. 

“Our average in-place rents are still only about $1,450 so we've got about a $375 mark-to-market gap. So even if everything was fully leased at market rents, you're just over $1,800, so it’s very affordable for most people. 

“And it's still a really good quality product. We're just looking to prune some C-class assets and add more A-class assets. That will continue to be our strategy over the coming years.”