Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust has agreed to acquire affordable housing assets from American International Group for about $5.1B in an all-cash transaction.
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AIG, which held affordable housing for more than 30 years, said the assets are no longer core to its long-term investment strategy, Reuters reports, though the seller didn't specify which portions of its affordable housing property portfolio will be part of the deal.
"While the highly specialized assets subject to this transaction are attractive investments, they are no longer core to AIG’s long-term investment strategy," AIG President and CEO Peter Zaffino said in a statement.
BREIT has been on a residential real estate acquisition roll recently. In June, the company signed a $6B deal to acquire Chicago-based Home Partners of America, a specialist in owning and managing single-family rental houses, with more than 17,000 properties in the United States.
In May, Blackstone said it will acquire about 5,800 San Diego County apartments from The Conrad Prebys Foundation for about $1B, promising to keep rents affordable to residents earning 80% or less of the median income in the area, The Real Deal reports.
In 2019, Blackstone sold its stake in Invitation Homes for a profit but returned to the residential sector when it paid $300M for an equity stake in Toronto-based single-family rental firm Tricon Residential.
The affordable housing deal between BREIT and AIG came at the same time as AIG agreed to sell a 9.9% stake in its life and retirement business to Blackstone, which will pay about $2.2B. That is also a cash deal, and like the affordable housing transaction, it is expected to close in Q4 2021.
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