Blackstone adds to bet on US student housing with $13-bn deal

Blackstone Inc. is betting big on U.S. property with a deal to buy student-housing operator American Campus Communities Inc. for $12.8 billion. 

The all-cash transaction is the largest student-housing deal by the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust. Known as BREIT for short, the $97 billion fund last year invested in the industry through a $784 million joint venture with Landmark Properties.  

New York-based Blackstone has been scooping up U.S. housing assets of all kinds as the pandemic reshapes where Americans work and live, which along with low borrowing costs and supply constraints has driven a boom in property values across