United Apartment Group targets 50,000 units by 2030 with management-company buys

United Apartment Group manages 32,237 units and has two numbers in front of it: 35,000 by year-end and 50,000 by 2030. The San Antonio operator got to today's figure the slow way, through existing clients and broker referrals, founder and chief executive Tim Settles told Multifamily Dive, and the next stretch is meant to run on two September hires plus a search for acquisitions.

The arithmetic sets the size of the job. Year-end takes 2,763 more units, and 50,000 takes 17,763. President Loyal Proffitt told the publication that UAG will keep mining for clients while also looking to buy management companies in the 3,000- to 10,000-unit range, so growth runs on two tracks at once. Even a purchase at the top of that band would leave 7,763 units to find, and target firms that size are between roughly a tenth and a third of UAG's own book, which points to a series of deals rather than one transforming one.

Geography, not unit count, is the stated reason. UAG's footprint today is concentrated in Texas, and Proffitt named Charlotte, Denver, Phoenix and Las Vegas as markets he wants, plus deeper positions in Atlanta, Nashville and Florida, places where the firm's clients are buying. A wider map also gives UAG's associates somewhere to move when they are promoted, he said, and it lets the company manage more of Brixton Capital's own portfolio.

The capital for all of it is already inside the company. Brixton Capital, the Solana Beach private real estate investment company, acquired a majority interest in UAG in 2020, and Proffitt describes it as the engine behind the growth goals, with Brixton wanting to scale its own acquisition portfolio while the management company expands its footprint. His framing of the second half: "It's not only about growing in number of units."

What an acquisition would buy, then, is contracts and staff rather than buildings, and the fee stream travels with the people who hold the client relationships. UAG is 31 years old and appeared on the National Multifamily Housing Council's Top 50 managers list nine consecutive times before missing the most recent one. Multifamily Dive frames the 50,000-unit goal as the route back onto it.

The September hires, announced in a press release, are Woody Stone as chief growth officer and Lenzie O'Connor as vice president of client services and strategy, both industry veterans according to the publication. What UAG would pay for a management company, or whether it would buy equity in one or only the management agreements, the coverage does not say. Year-end at 35,000 units is the first checkpoint. The 2030 figure is 55% more units than UAG manages today, which is why the acquisition track carries the weight it does.