Virtus Real Estate Capital has announced the launch of a $500 million fund. This will be primarily targeting the student housing, self-storage, medical offices and senior living projects and will cover the US.

The private real estate firm based in Austin- Texas, have started targeting the areas which they believe are resilient to the recession. Virtus are looking to raise $500 million in equity commitments with a restraint of up to $700 million, making it the biggest fund for the firm till date. They are pursuing both opportunistic and value-added strategies for this project, with target net returns of over 15%.

Virtus first focused on student housing last year, with its successful launch of Virtus Student Housing in spring 2011. This fund is still open is seeking $100 million up to $150 million in equity commitments from investors. This fund is expected to close in June / July 2012. As it previously had experience in the other markets, Virtus decided to launch a multi-property type strategy to get the most out of the market and their expertise.

The previous fund launched in August called Virtus Storage Investment IV sealed $46 million in equity commitments.

Source: PERE 07/02/2012