Camden Property Trust Buys Discounted North Austin Apartments

Camden Property Trust is banking on Austin’s multifamily market to rebound, with a discounted apartment buy.

The Houston-based REIT purchased a 352-unit apartment complex in the north Austin suburb of Leander for $67.7 million, Camden shared in its fourth-quarter earnings call. That works out to $192,300 per unit. The seller is Dallas-based developer CESM Real Estate, deed documents show.

The sale price is 16 percent lower than the property’s most recent property tax appraisal value of $81 million, according to appraisal district records.

Camden Leander, at 1101 Halsey Drive, is about 30 miles northwest of downtown Austin. The “ranch-style” property sits on 23 acres and features a pool as well as a yoga and barre studio. It was built in 2023.

Despite the discount on the purchase, Camden is offering concessions at the property — up to eight weeks free on certain apartments. It’s about 85 percent occupied, Camden said on the earnings call.

The REIT provides letter grades to its markets and graded Austin a C-minus, due to the effect of historic multifamily supply on rent growth. It’s expecting the city’s multifamily market to perform similarly this year, setting it up for a rebound in 2026.

“Austin’s going to be great in 2026,” Camden CEO Ric Campo said on the call.

Almost 16,000 units were delivered in Austin in the first three quarters of last year, causing rents to tumble nearly 5 percent year over year to $1,614, according to Yardi Matrix.

In October, Madera Residential’s Jay Parsons ranked the submarkets around the country with the steepest rent cuts, and Austin submarkets took up nine of the 15 spots. Southeast Austin ranked first with a 12.8 percent drop in rents in the last 12 months.