A fund managed by BlackRock has acquired over 3,600 rental housing units in Southern California. This represents one of the region's largest commercial property transactions recently and is the most extensive multifamily sale in the US since June 2024.
An investment vehicle of the asset manager BlackRock paid $1.63bn for a portfolio of eleven properties from Camden Property Trust. The portfolio has an occupancy rate of 96 per cent and comprises 3,620 residential units across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties.
Financing and Portfolio Details
JLL Capital Markets announced the transaction on Wednesday. The firm represented Houston-based Camden in the sale and arranged acquisition financing of $566.6m for the buyer. This financing covers seven of the properties and is structured as a five-year, fixed-rate, interest-only loan, allowing for the independent sale or refinancing of each individual property.
JLL described the transaction as one of the largest apartment portfolio deals ever concluded in Southern California. The acquired assets represent approximately 16.5 per cent of the average annual multifamily transaction volume in the region, measured by the number of units, over the last five years.
Scope of the Portfolio
The portfolio includes, among others, The Camden, a development in Hollywood with 287 units and almost 39,000 square feet of retail space anchored by an Equinox gym. It also includes Camden Crown Valley with 380 units in Mission Viejo, Camden Landmark with 469 units in Ontario – which accounts for about 5 per cent of that city's institutional apartment stock – and Camden Hillcrest with 132 units in San Diego. According to JLL, no multifamily property with more than 100 units has traded in San Diego in the last ten years.
Blake Rogers, Senior Managing Director and Head of JLL's Multifamily Platform, stated that the significant investor demand for these prime assets in supply-constrained markets underscores the strength of Southern California's fundamentals, leading to high liquidity at scale.
