36% loss. Private equity firm Blackstone sold two 13-story Class A office towers, the Griffin Towers, in Santa Ana, Orange County, California, for $82 million to a joint venture between Barker Pacific Group and Kingsbarn Realty Capital. The towers, built in 1987, have a vacancy rate of 24%.

Blackstone had bought the towers in 2014 for $129 million, according to the Commercial Observer yesterday. The selling price makes for a loss of 36%. And Blackstone was lucky on this deal.

In 2007, at the peak of the prior CRE bubble, the towers changed hands at $183.8 million. And in 2010, it sold again for $89.9 million. In Orange County, the office vacancy rate reached a record of 23.1% in Q1 2023, according to Savills.