In Largest U.S. Multifamily Sale Since 2024, BlackRock Pays $1.63B in SoCal

BlackRock has acquired more than 3,600 rental residential units in Southern California in one of the region’s largest commercial real estate deals in recent memory. It’s also the largest U.S. multifamily sale since June 2024.

One of the investment vehicles run by the asset management titan put down $1.63 billion for Camden Property Trust’s 11-property portfolio. The portfolio is 96 percent occupied, with 3,620 apartment units in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties.

JLL Capital Markets announced the deal Wednesday after it represented Houston-based Camden in the sale, and arranged $566.6 million in agency acquisition financing for the buyer. The financing covers seven of the properties and consists of a five-year, fixed-rate, interest-only loan structured to allow each asset to be sold or refinanced independently.

JLL said the deal is one of the biggest apartment portfolio deals ever completed in Southern California, and that the assets represent roughly 16.5 percent of the region’s average annual multifamily transaction volume by unit count over the past five years.

The portfolio includes the Camden, a 287-unit Hollywood development with nearly 39,000 square feet of  retail anchored by an Equinox gym; the 380-unit Camden Crown Valley in Mission Viejo; the 469-unit Camden Landmark in Ontario, representing roughly 5 percent of that city’s institutional apartment inventory; and the 132-unit Camden Hillcrest in San Diego, where JLL said no multifamily property with more than 100 units has traded in the past decade.

“The significant investor demand for these best-in-class assets in supply-constrained markets underscores the strength of Southern California fundamentals, leading to significant liquidity at scale,” Blake Rogers, senior managing director and multifamily platform leader at JLL, said in a statement.

Gregory Cornfield can be reached at gcornfield@commercialobserver.com.