The market for U.S. multifamily properties outperformed in the second quarter of 2025, outpacing nearly every other commercial real estate sector in both transaction value and annual price growth, according to the latest Altus Group Investment & Transactions Quarterly Report.
Multifamily transactions up sharply
The headline numbers show that multifamily sales volume surged to $34.1 billion in Q2 2025—up 39.5 percent from the same period last year. This marked the largest year-over-year dollar volume increase across all tracked sectors. Multifamily transactions alone accounted for 30 percent of all U.S. commercial real estate (CRE) trading activity by dollar value in the quarter.
Other sectors showing significant gains included the office sector, with an 11.8 percent increase, and commercial-general with an 11.3 percent increase.
The primary commercial real estate sectors tracked by Altus are industrial, office, retail, hospitality and commercial-general. Altus also reports some data on property subtypes under these categories, although no subtypes are listed for multifamily.
The total property transaction count in multifamily fell, with 11,485 properties trading hands (down 9.2 percent from a year earlier). However, a trend toward higher value deals pushed the median transaction size and per-square-foot values to post-pandemic highs. This bifurcation—fewer transactions but larger deals—suggests that the trophy asset class and major metro trades are driving overall results.
Prices hit record highs
Altus tracks commercial property prices, including multifamily property prices, on a dollars per square foot basis. Unlike property sales data reports from CoStar and from MSCI, Altus does not say that they use same-property data for their comparisons.
Among property sectors, multifamily boasted the fastest annual rate of price growth in Q2 2025 with a 19 percent gain, edging out retail, whose prices grew 18 percent. The commercial property all-sector average was up 13.9 percent year-over-year in Q2 2025.
The median transaction price for multifamily was up 4 percent from the previous quarter. This trailed the 10 percent quarter-over-quarter increase seen for retail property and the 7 percent increase seen for office property.
Median prices for single-property apartment assets hit a new high, rising to $148 per square foot. This price performance, coupled with the return of capital to the sector, signals a market in firm recovery mode—buoyed by both resurgent investor confidence and still-robust rent fundamentals in many regions.
Since the close of 2019, multifamily median prices have now appreciated 57 percent—an increase exceeded only by the industrial sector’s 77 percent cumulative gain.
According to Altus, the median multifamily property transacted in Q2 2025 was 9,002 square feet in size, carrying a median value of $1,686,931, based on single-property transactions. While the median transacted property size has been trending lower since 2014, the Q2 figure represents an uptick in this metric. The median transacted value also represents an increase for the quarter. However, it remains well below the levels seen in 2021 and 2022.
Altus tracks property sales transactions per day, a metric they call pacing. They reported that pacing increased quarter-over-quarter across all CRE segments, including multifamily, but remained at or below pre-pandemic historical averages (2015-19). Despite the reported increase, Altus shows that growth in the cumulative number of transactions for this year has flattened out. In most years, it increases steadily throughout the year.
Regional performance varies widely
The report included information on multifamily property pricing per square foot in the top ten Census Bureau Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) by population. The leader for year-over-year price growth was the New York City MSA, with an increase of 33 percent. However, this metro’s price per square foot at $160 was only in the middle of the pack. The largest price decline was a drop of 41 percent for the Washington D.C. MSA.
The highest price per square foot was recorded in the Miami MSA at $303. The lowest price per square foot was recorded as $77 in the Houston MSA.
The full report provides more detail on other property types. It is available here.
