Millegan Creek
Millegan Creek
Millegan Creek
An Investment Analysis
10
Some of the issues for Fleet to finance Millegan Creek Apartments are whether JPI would be
able to repay the loan or not, how JPI would pay back their loan and if the demand for
apartments will stay in the market. Apart from this Fleet Bank has to decide whether the deal
negotiated by Tom with JPI should be changed or not i.e. how a change in interest rate will affect
both the parties. Moreover with the environmental concerns increasing in Austin, it will be
difficult for developers to continue with their projects if they do not meet the required standards.
The economy in Austin has been growing for the last so many years and has been ranked near
the top of the list of the most desirable cities in which to locate businesses. There are various
high technology companies which have set up their base in Austin. Companies like IBM,
Motorola Inc, Apple Computers, and Texas Instruments employ an approximately 23000 high
skilled employees making Austin one of the best for Knowledge workers.
The Austin Apartment market has gone through its ups and downs. Looking closely we see that
there is a trend of decreasing occupancy percentage every 5-6 years. Going with this trend, we
can say that occupancy rate might go down in future i.e. it can decrease from 1993 onwards.
Also, there is an assumption made by Tom that over the next three years there would be around
8744 units built. When we look at the population data, we see that there is an approximately
addition of 30,000 people every year. So the increase in demand for houses is compensated by
JPI Multifamily Inc. (JPI) is a well-known developer, famous for surviving the Texas real estate
crash. It has an experience of building a large number of apartments. In March 1994, they had
eight projects with 2,700 units under construction. It has already developed two apartments, one
in South west part town and other in North Central area, in Austin. It had some interesting
apartment projects, which had takeout commitments from General Electric Credit Corporation.
In addition to developing apartments, JPI managed about 10,000 apartment units. It tries to
continually refine and improve their buildings and amenity packages based on their experience
Location of the site plays an important role in JPI choosing the location for the development of
the apartments. JPI got interested in area to the North of Jollyville road and outside of the Austin
City limits after the Parmer Lane got expanded from a two lane to a six-lane road, leading to
excellent north-south access. Even the McNeil Road, which brought about 15,000 cars in an east
west direction past the site each day, was upgraded from a two lane to a five-lane road. Due to
the property location being outside the City of Austin, the property taxes were lower and zoning
approval easier. It was also very close to Austin’s high tech companies, which made the site
more desirable.
Millegan Creek Apartments would be a typical JPI luxury apartment targeting renters with high
discretionary incomes. The site would include amenities like two swimming pools, a clubhouse.
Millegan Creek Apartments would be a typical JPI luxury apartment complex targeted at people
with lifestyle choice to live in rental apartments. When we compare these apartments with the
others in the same area, we find that JPI have priced Millegan Apartments quite competitively
and at a rental rate of $0.83 per square feet per month. We believe that with a focused customer
and competitive pricing, JPI would be able to market Millegan Apartments successfully.