About
A disciplined approach to investing in real estate through cycles
Avālia Capital Partners is a real estate investment firm focused on identifying mispriced opportunities across distressed and transitional assets. We combine deep market experience with a disciplined, risk-aware approach to capital deployment, prioritizing preservation first and long-term value creation second.
Avālia Capital Partners was founded to navigate complex real estate markets with clarity and discipline. The firm focuses on sourcing, underwriting, and executing investments in situations where traditional capital has pulled back, creating opportunities for experienced operators to step in with precision. Our strategy is rooted in identifying inefficiencies across the capital stack, with a particular focus on distressed debt, hospitality assets, and off-market acquisitions.
Led by over two decades of experience across commercial real estate finance, private credit, and advisory, the firm brings an institutional mindset to every investment decision. We emphasize structure, downside protection, and disciplined execution in all market environments.
Our approach is simple: invest with discipline, protect capital, and execute with clarity. We focus on opportunities where complexity creates value, and where experience provides an edge.
We believe the most compelling opportunities emerge when markets are dislocated, capital is constrained, and disciplined investors are positioned to act with conviction.
Discipline
We approach every investment with structure, patience, and a clear understanding of risk.
Integrity
Transparency and alignment with our investors are fundamental to how we operate.
Conviction
We invest where we have strong belief, supported by data, experience, and market insight.
Precision
Every detail matters, from underwriting to execution.
Accountability
We take ownership of outcomes and remain fully engaged throughout the lifecycle of every investment.
Resilience
We are built to operate across cycles, adapting strategy while maintaining core principles.
Seatrice N. Foster is the Founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer of Avālia Capital Partners, where she leads firm strategy, capital deployment, and portfolio construction. She brings more than two decades of experience across commercial real estate finance, private credit, and brokerage, with a career centered on evaluating risk, structuring complex transactions, and navigating market cycles across multiple economic environments. Her background includes commercial loan origination and structuring, distressed and transitional asset evaluation, capital stack negotiation and lender workouts, and acquisition advisory across hospitality and other commercial asset classes. As CIO, she oversees underwriting standards, acquisition strategy, and risk management, with a focus on capital preservation and long-term value creation.
Seatrice N. Foster
Founder, President & Chief Investment Officer
email: seatrice@gmail.com
Phone: (773) 571-8207
Aaron Lockhart is the Senior Managing Principal and Chief Investment Strategist of Avalia Capital Partners. Over more than a decade in Chicago real estate, he has closed over 900 transactions and more than $200 million in volume, generating over $35 million in realized profit across multiple market cycles. The engine behind those numbers is a distressed playbook proven through changing conditions: acquire mispriced assets, reposition them, and exit into strength. He has run it well beyond residential, across industrial warehouses, more than a dozen multifamily buildings of ten units or larger, and land, including a 310-acre parcel he bought at $1.2 million and sold for $3 million. Over the past six years he has financed most of these acquisitions with privately raised capital, deploying and returning capital deal after deal. Avalia extends that discipline into distressed hospitality, pursuing hotel assets dislocated by tightening credit. Mr. Lockhart leads its strategic acquisitions, investment analysis, asset repositioning, and dispositions, building around a single principle: capital is committed only where the downside is underwritten before the upside is promised.
Aaron Lockhart
Senior Managing Principal, Chief Investment Strategist
email: aaron@deichicago.com
Phone: (773) 571-8207
Julie A. Gibson is a Harvard-educated executive who serves as COO & CFO of Avalia Capital Partners, an investment platform focused on distressed and opportunistic commercial real estate. Avalia Capital deploys institutional discipline, macro insight, and risk management frameworks to navigate complex market cycles. A former capital markets executive with over 20 years of experience spanning derivatives, asset securitization, and foreign exchange markets, Gibson’s work is increasingly focused on:
The global refinancing cycle and capital repricing
Distressed and transitional asset opportunities
The intersection of markets, geopolitics, and long-term structural change
The emergence of new capital architectures, including diaspora capital
Julie is also a speaker and author of multiple books across nonfiction and literary fiction, exploring themes of power, prophecy, markets, and identity. Her work challenges conventional narratives and invites audiences to think critically about the unseen forces shaping our world.
In addition to her advisory work, she has spent years teaching financial literacy, mentoring emerging leaders, and building platforms designed to expand access to economic opportunity—particularly for women and communities across the African Diaspora.
Recipient of the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award for Community Service.
Julie A. Gibson
Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer
email: jgibson7788@gmail.com
Phone: (773) 571-8207