Despite a sluggish second quarter, the multifamily real estate sector remains a dominant force in the U.S. commercial property market. According to new data from MSCI Real Assets, apartment property sales fell 14% year-over-year in Q2 2025, dipping to $35.1 billion. The numbers, shared with Multifamily Dive, point to a more challenging environment after an unusually strong 2024, which had been boosted by major entity-level transactions—like Blackstone’s $10 billion acquisition of AIR Communities, its biggest multifamily deal to date.
Yet the broader context is important. While the second quarter lagged behind the same period in 2024, overall multifamily transaction volume for the first half of the year reached $66.6 billion, a 5% increase compared to last year. The MSCI report underscores that, despite the quarterly dip, the sector remains "the largest, most liquid component of the commercial real estate market in the U.S., with deal volume just below pre-pandemic levels." The report notes that last year’s outsize quarterly tally was largely driven by that singular $10 billion Blackstone transaction.
Individual multifamily asset sales told a somewhat brighter story. These rose 15% year-over-year to $28 billion, nearly matching the average second-quarter volume seen between 2014 and 2019, before the pandemic disrupted the market. Major markets such as Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago saw combined sales climb 6% to $6.7 billion. Individual sales in non-major metro areas were up even more sharply, rising 18% to $21.3 billion. However, portfolio sales—deals involving multiple properties sold together—plunged 57% to $7.1 billion.
In comparison, other commercial real estate sectors outperformed multifamily in the second quarter. According to a JPMorgan research note drawing on MSCI’s U.S. Capital Trends report, overall CRE transactions surged, with retail, industrial, and office property sales up by 37.4%, 15% and 11.5% respectively. JPMorgan noted that second-quarter activity tracked “well above our assumptions,” and that June in particular saw finalized CRE transaction volumes revised upward by nearly 30% year-over-year, reaching $120.2 billion. By contrast, multifamily and hotel segments posted the sharpest declines, with volumes down 46.1% and 45.6%, respectively.
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