The return of the nation's apartment investors to dealmaking in the past year is playing out in a portfolio sale involving two active multifamily firms and properties from coast to coast.
One of 2025's most expensive multifamily transactions came last month when Los Angeles–based private real estate investment firm JRK bought a $400 million, three-property portfolio from Chicago-based REIT Equity Residential, totaling 803 apartment units in Seattle, Los Angeles and Hoboken, New Jersey.
Sales momentum has been accelerating nationwide. According to CoStar data, trailing 12-month multifamily sales volume through November 2025 climbed 29% from the same time in 2024.
Pricing has also stabilized after bottoming out in March 2024 at roughly 27% below the 2022 peak, and construction starts are at their lowest level in more than a decade, prompting investors to lock in discounted values before supply and demand rebalance, according to CoStar research.
“The multifamily sector has reached an inflection point whereby we can acquire assets at a unique time where new supply subsides and long-term fundamentals remain strong,” JRK President Daniel Lippman said in a statement.
The transaction caps a record acquisition year for JRK. The firm acquired more than $1.3 billion of multifamily properties across the United States in 2025, with deals stretching across Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Miami and New Orleans.
Second-half strengthening
Much of that activity took place in the latter half of the year, as the nation's apartment market recovered from economic headwinds ranging from high interest rates to tariff uncertainty.
"Rising deal volume is more than a headline, it is often the first sign of a market stabilizing, and it's been the directional trend since early 2024," a CoStar market report said.
Still, apartment openings continue to outpace demand, CoStar notes. The nation's vacancy rate is hovering around 8.5%, up nearly 200 basis points from the year prior.
The JRK portfolio deal adds three coastal assets: the 408-unit Centennial in Seattle, the 301-unit 77 Park Avenue in Hoboken and the 94-unit C on Pico in Los Angeles.
JRK, which focuses on value-add and core-plus strategies, manages roughly $9 billion in assets across 26 states, including about 30,000 multifamily units and 10 hotels.
Those investments span two multifamily strategies: the $1 billion JRK Platform 5 Fund, targeting post-1990 properties with repositioning potential, and the $188 million JRK MF Opportunities III fund, focused on older properties.
Exploring hotel deals, too
The firm is also deploying capital through a $350 million hospitality platform aimed at opportunistic full-service and select-service hotels nationwide.
JRK plans to be just as active in 2026, according to Senior Managing Director and Head of U.S. Investments Shaan Bhatia.
“As capital markets normalize and supply pressures ease, the coming years will present compelling opportunities to deploy capital at scale,” Bhatia said in a statement.
While JRK is accelerating its buying, Equity Residential is moving in the opposite direction by trimming coastal exposure and redeploying capital into faster-growing Sun Belt markets.
The REIT sold nine properties last year, including the Teresina Apartments in Chula Vista, California, which Nuveen acquired for $180 million, and the 289-unit Urbana in Seattle, which sold to San Francisco-based Carmel Partners for $121 million in May.
At the same time, Equity Residential expanded its Sun Belt footprint by purchasing an eight-property, 2,064-unit Atlanta portfolio from a Blackstone affiliate for $535 million in June.
Multifamily investment activity is climbing as pricing resets create opportunities for well-capitalized buyers to reposition properties and generate returns. Slightly lower borrowing costs have also helped improve deal economics, according to CoStar research.