Blackstone To Make $1.7B Rental Apartment Buy
Blackstone made clear its intention to beef up its rental property portfolio by agreeing to acquire $1.7B worth of apartment buildings containing 11K units. Sources with knowledge of the deal told Bloomberg that half the properties are in California, Boston and Washington DC with the rest scattered around the country.
The transaction would increase the private equity giant's residential portfolio by nearly 35%, to 43K units. The New York real estate investment company Praedium Group is selling the properties to Blackstone's LivCor unit, which it formed in 2013 from assets acquired through a $2.7B deal with General Electric. The latest buy when completed would make LivCor about half the size of America's two biggest residential REITs, Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities.
