Camden Property Trust Sells West Coast Portfolio, Clears $1.5B Target
Camden Property Trust sold its 11-property California portfolio for $1.63B, roughly seven months after it disclosed it was looking to leave the state.
The Houston-based REIT announced the sale of the 3,620-unit portfolio along with second-quarter earnings.
The buyer, which wasn’t disclosed, paid roughly $450K per unit for the portfolio, which spans the Los Angeles-Orange County and San Diego-Inland Empire markets.
Camden put the properties up for sale in January with JLL for an asking price of around $1.5B, and CEO Alex Jessett said Friday the sale proceeds “were in line with expectations.” The firm plans to use the proceeds to pay down debt and roll capital into new Sun Belt investments through 1031 exchanges.
“The California disposition was a significant strategic milestone,” Chief Financial Officer Ben Fraker said. “We used the proceeds to repurchase shares at an attractive discount to [net asset value], reinvest tax efficiently through 1031 exchanges, and increase exposure to attractive Sun Belt growth markets.”
Camden also acquired five apartment developments and two pieces of land in the second quarter for a combined $645.4M. The 2,061-unit portfolio spans Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona and North Carolina. Its broader portfolio is spread across 15 markets, primarily in the Sun Belt and Washington, D.C.
The REIT ended the quarter with a portfolio of 167 properties encompassing 56,695 units, not including three projects under development. Its portfolio was 95.7% occupied at the end of the quarter, flat year-over-year and up 60 basis points from the prior quarter. But same-store net operating income was down 1.4% from the prior year, continuing a string of declining profits.
Camden reported mixed results for the quarter, with core adjusted funds from operations slipping 8% from the prior year and 1.2% quarter-over-quarter to $145M.
Camden repurchased 1.4 million shares at an average price of $100.78 across the second quarter and has $298M remaining under its repurchase authorization. Camden's stock was down more than 2% in early trading to around $109 per share.
Camden named Jessett as its second-ever CEO in March, replacing Ric Campo, who had led the company since its initial public offering in 1993. Campo stayed on as executive chairman.
Developers are taking mixed approaches to California broadly and Los Angeles specifically. Don Peebles, the CEO of real estate investment and development firm The Peebles Corp., called California “the most difficult place to do business in the United States” in a 2025 Fox News interview, highlighting the many pandemic-era relocations.
Jessett said Friday the California exit would save Camden on regulatory costs.
Regulatory costs “would have reduced our California portfolio's annual NOI by approximately 80 basis points” if Camden kept the assets.
In 2024, Wood Developers announced plans to shutter its West Coast operations while breaking ground on more than 5,000 apartments in other parts of the country, instead targeting states like Texas and Florida.
But more than 4,000 new multifamily units broke ground around Los Angeles in the first quarter, the most in the area since 2022, including New York-based G4 Capital Partners' first project outside its home state.
