Blackstone sells Riverside apartment complex for $102M

Los Angeles | by Isabella Farr

La Palma-based Silver Star pays $336K per unit

Blackstone has sold an apartment complex in the Inland Empire city of Riverside for a large haircut.

The private equity firm sold a 304-unit complex at 3610 Banbury Drive for $102 million, or about $336,000 per unit, public property records show. CBRE’s Dean Zander and Stew Weston, who brokered the deal on behalf of the buyer, announced the sale earlier this month, but did not disclose the seller or the price.

Silver Star Real Estate, a firm based in La Palma, bought the property, using a loan from MF1 Capital, which is a partnership between Berkshire Residential Investments and Limekiln Real Estate. Financial terms of the loan were not disclosed.

The deal came out to about what some other firms have paid over the last year for apartment complexes in Riverside on a per unit basis. In December, Advanced Real Estate Services bought a 212-unit property in downtown Riverside for about $80 million, or $377,000 per unit.

Blackstone had bought the property for about $145 million in 2019, records show. Since 2019, average rents for a one-bedroom unit in Riverside have increased about 38 percent to an average of $1,800 per month, according to Zumper. It’s unclear what drove the price decrease on the property.

​Rents at the Banbury Drive complex currently range from $1,800 for a one-bedroom to $2,600 for a two-bedroom unit.

​Formed in 2006, Silver Star Real Estate currently owns 37 properties in California, Texas, Utah and Arizona, comprising more than 1,900 units. In L.A., the firm owns 20 properties from Santa Monica up to Granada Hills in the San Fernando Valley. The new property in Riverside is the firm’s first in the city.