European Residential (ERES) REIT has agreed to sell $560 million worth of apartment assets in cities across the Netherlands as it winds up its business.

Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (CAPREIT), the majority owner of ERES, announced the pending sales in a news release Thursday. ERES is selling the assets through a subsidiary and expects the deal to close between early August and mid-September.

A total of 1,550 units are being sold, with 1,446 slated to go to New York-based Fortress Investment Group for $522 million and another 104 suites going to an undisclosed buyer.

ERES is in the process of selling all of its remaining assets, according to Mark Kenney, CEO for both ERES and CAPREIT.

Net proceeds are intended to fund a special distribution of $1.24 per unit to ERES unitholders. Based on its 65% stake, CAPREIT expects to receive about $189 million from the special distribution. CAPREIT expects to use its proceeds on invest in on-strategy multi-family rental properties and for general business purposes.

“These upcoming transactions will further reduce CAPREIT’s non-core European exposure, with an attractive portfolio of only 10 residential properties in the Netherlands remaining upon completion, along with two commercial properties,” said Kenney.

“Looking ahead, CAPREIT remains supportive of ERES’s strategy to surface the value of its remaining portfolio and distribute that net equity to its investors. And on our end, we’re looking forward to repatriating that liquidity and reinvesting it back into the residential-apartment market in Canada.”

CAPREIT did not disclose buyer details, but Fortress announced in a separate release that it is the proposed purchaser of the larger 1,446-unit portfolio. The pending deal covers 24 buildings in Holland’s Randstad and Limburg regions.

“We believe our business plan will deliver significant improvements to these assets over the coming years,” said Cyril Courbage, head of European real estate equity for Fortress.

The two deals are part of a larger ERES sell-off of approximately 1,900 apartment assets occurring in the Netherlands this year. According to CBRE, the REIT has completed the sales of another 415 units in 2025 to other purchasers.

“This landmark transaction [involving the proposed sale of the 1,446 units to Fortress] shows the availability for large-scale liquidity for Dutch residential and the quality of the ERES portfolio,” said Laurens de Blij, director of CBRE’s Dutch residential capital markets group.

The pending deals come after ERES completed the sale of 3,179 Dutch rental-apartment units in 2024 for approximately $1.1 billion. A consortium led by TPG-Angelo Gordon, Dream and Stadium Capital purchased those units.

Both CAPREIT and ERES are based in Toronto.

Photo: CAPREIT

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