Real Estate Investors Jump In Via Email Campaign: Bloomberg.

Lochiel St. at Christina St.

From Patrick Clarke and Julie Verhage, Bloomberg.

Real estate fund managers Michael Episcope and David Scherer had Georgia on their minds—specifically, Atlanta. The city, part of the third-largest-gaining metro area in the U.S. last year, according to Census Bureau data, was only getting hotter. So when the co-founders of real estate investment company Origin Investments spotted an opportunity last year to purchase a 125-unit apartment complex, they jumped on it.

The east portion of the old Sarnia Observer building, Christina St.

The property’s location, in Virginia-Highland, an affluent Atlanta neighborhood that’s home to organic shops, cocktail bars, and an indie film theater, was great. Yet Episcope and Scherer had a problem. They reckoned it would take about $19 million in equity to buy the building and an adjacent undeveloped lot, but they wanted to invest only $12 million.

Their solution was somewhat novel: Instead of bringing in a partner, Origin brought in dozens of them. 

Origin emailed hundreds of investors with an offer to invest in the complex. Twenty-four hours later, the Chicago-based company had raised an additional $6.6 million from 39 investors and had 23 more takers on the waiting list.

“It was spoken for very quickly,” Episcope says. “We came in the next day and had to send out an email and say, ‘We’re filled up because the number of inquiries is more than we could satisfy.’ ”

Just west of the intersection of Christina and Wellington Streets.

Episcope and Scherer founded Origin in 2007 to invest their own money in office buildings and apartment developments in secondary U.S. cities, areas other than inflated markets such as New York and San Francisco. By the time the partners closed a $151 million fund raised from 450 investors last June, they’d transformed the company into something different: a real estate private equity fund that uses crowdfunding-like tactics to raise money from family offices and high-net-worth individuals.

Link to the rest here.

Images. Zach Neal.

Editorial Note. The city core appears to be getting some new investment, including the new Signature hotel at the former Drawbridge Inn, and the refurbishment of the old Colborne Hotel and some other projects, the biggest of which will involve turning the old Bayside Mall into senior's residences as well as retail and public spaces.

Thank you for reading.