Blackstone Group LP agreed to buy GE Japan Corp.'s residential property business for more than ¥190 billion to expand its apartment holdings in Japan.
The business being acquired owns and operates more than 200 properties with more than 10,000 residential units, mainly in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka, Blackstone said in a statement Thursday. The New York-based company, the biggest U.S. single-family rental-home landlord, said it's making the purchase partly with its new Asia real estate fund.
International buyers have been flocking to Japan's residential market after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in 2012 with a pledge to end the deflation that's depressed real estate prices. The yen has declined 14 percent in the past four months against the dollar, making properties less expensive for overseas buyers.
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