Delivering on Our Commitment to Impact, Despite a Challenging Operating Environment

Author: Sarah Morgan, Director of Human Resources

Through our Sunbelt Funds, Ballast Rock Asset Management invests in workforce multifamily apartments in the Southeast. Our in-house property management team, Sunbelt Properties, exclusively manages all the funds’ properties. While our core focus is striving to deliver attractive returns for investors, what sets us apart is our passion for delivering safe, clean, and comfortable places that our residents are proud to call home.

Throughout 2025, the Ballast Rock Asset Management and the Sunbelt Properties teams worked hand-in-hand to improve the operational performance of our apartment communities, while also respecting and treating them as just that: communities.

As we look forward to the year ahead, I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight how Sunbelt Properties continues to enable us to provide differentiated returns to our investors.

Sunbelt Properties — Building a Best-in-Class Team

Part of how we deliver on our mission is by empowering the Sunbelt team to truly enrich residents’ lives, and that all starts with company culture. When we interview new hires, we are frequently asked, “What is it like to work at Sunbelt Properties?” The easiest way to explain it is that Sunbelt Properties puts people first and puts practices in place that encourage team members to lift each other up.

As an example, we use Nectar, a platform designed to allow colleagues to recognize each other’s accomplishments, daily to boost camaraderie and improve employee satisfaction and retention. This not only allows us to deliver better outcomes to our communities, but it also helps us keep costs down due to lower employee turnover, which ultimately benefits our investors, too.

Sunbelt’s numerous chat groups, built for various regional teams to connect on work related topics, also give team members a chance to form groups for a variety of team building activities like our annual “step challenge” and a “75-day healthy habits” challenge. The ability for every Sunbelt employee to connect with each other fosters a close-knit team, despite the many miles and states that separate them. At Sunbelt, we believe that our properties can only thrive when our teams thrive.

In addition to open communication and incentivizing best practices, as each year comes to a close, the Sunbelt maintenance teams are recognized with “Maintenance Appreciation Week” where they are rewarded with things like personalized gifts and team meals each day of the week. Office-based staff, residents, and vendors from all properties collaborate to spoil our hard-working maintenance teams, with many bringing baked goods, restaurant gift cards, and new tools to the teams. In a field like maintenance, which typically experiences high turnover, Sunbelt Properties makes a consistent effort to remind its team members of their value by encouraging career development and growth by promoting from within, organizing team building activities, and facilitating ongoing training.

Not only do employees feel appreciated in their roles, but they also build skills that have a lasting positive impact on the properties they care for. In 2025, Sunbelt maintenance technicians added four new EPA certifications to their repertoire which allows them to service, repair, and handle refrigerants for equipment like HVAC units and refrigerators. Some maintenance technicians also earned their CPO certifications which allow them to legally and safely maintain pools. Overall, over 50% of Sunbelt’s maintenance staff now hold some sort of professional certifications, and that number continues to grow. As team members gain these certifications, we can reduce the number of outsourced and contracted work orders, bringing improvements like countertop refurbishment, bathtub refinishing, and flooring repair in-house, effectively reducing costs related to maintenance and improving our time-to-service.

Building Teams. Building Traditions. Building Communities.

Ballast Rock purchased its first property almost seven years ago (Amelia Apartments in Valdosta, GA, in February 2019!) and many of the Sunbelt team members have been with us for the long haul. Their loyal presence affords them the opportunity to create lasting traditions that residents can expect to participate in year after year. Residents that are made to feel like part of a community are less likely to leave, and fewer people leaving means less vacancy time and turnover costs for our units.

Stone Brooke residents in Dalton look forward to the annual Thanksgiving giveaway which provides a Thanksgiving feast to one lucky family each year. Windtree announced the start of “Food Truck Fridays” where residents get to taste a new local cuisine each week. Stone Ridge opened its doors to trick-or-treaters this Halloween, and Springlake families enjoyed a rare snow day in south Georgia. Huntingdon residents gathered for the annual “Community Appreciation Luncheon” at the leasing office over the summer, and the onsite Florence team and regional managers commemorated the success of Bentree with a community and team celebration.

The Impact

Best-in-Class

Within two short years of Sunbelt Multifamily Fund II acquiring Bentree Apartments in Florence, SC, the complex was nominated and named the 2025 Best of South Carolina Winner in the Apartment Communities category. Following the standard Sunbelt Properties playbook of modernizing units, boosting curb appeal, and providing stand-out service, the Bentree team was able to distinguish themselves in the Florence market and create a true sense of community. Bentree, along with the rest of the Sunbelt family of properties, is committed to setting the precedent for what we hope will be a long track record of award-winning recognition.

A Turnaround Story

The on-the-ground team for Sunbelt Multifamily Fund III’s asset, Stone Ridge Apartments in Birmingham, AL, remains committed to enhancing community engagement for its residents, while identifying potential new leasing avenues in the local market and making its presence known through outreach initiatives and partnerships with local businesses.

The biggest challenge for Stone Ridge, upon its acquisition in 2024, was the overwhelmingly low occupancy due to several “down” units, a significant number of deferred repair and maintenance issues, and a poor reputation in the market due to an extremely low level of resident satisfaction, driven by poor management under the previous owner. Throughout 2025, the property management team at Stone Ridge focused on performing essential repairs and upgrades, responding to residents’ complaints in a timely and professional manner, and gradually improving the overall quality and condition of the units and surrounding common areas.

As well as improving individual units for residents, Stone Ridge has earned a seat at the table in the Birmingham market with the following upgrades, initiatives, and awards:

• Participation in student housing fairs at local schools and universities
• Recognition as a top apartment complex in Birmingham in July from its improved Google reviews since acquisition
• Established a social media presence with weekly posts highlighting resident events and notices
• Updated listing photos with professional staging and photography
• Repaired entrance gate
• Refreshed the communal gym area, including purchasing and installing new gym equipment, as well as implementing after-hours key-fob access to the gym
• Replaced roofs across the property and upgraded landscaping
• Repaired fire alarm system, which was previously inactive but could get accidentally triggered, potentially causing building and unit flooding

All of these efforts have paid off, with occupancy rapidly rebounding off the lows, when we took ownership in 2024, to over 80% by mid-2025 and finishing the year strong, achieving 90%+ occupancy. Not only that, but Stone Ridge was also recognized as a Top 3 apartment complex in Birmingham, something that would have been unthinkable under previous ownership and management.

Conclusion

We have made a commitment to our residents, investors, and employees to foster safe, affordable, and vibrant communities. In fact, given around 30% of Sunbelt staff members live at the properties where they work, we demonstrate our belief in maintaining communities to a standard that we would be proud to live in ourselves.

This commitment to excellence has received industry recognition, including being awarded “Best Place to Work in Multifamily” in both 2024 and 2025.

While we remain dedicated to showcasing all that Sunbelt Properties provides to its residents, we also want to demonstrate to investors how our investment in the growth of our team members uplifts those team members while improving the value of our properties, allowing us to continue to offer differentiated returns to our fund investors.