In a solid rental market that’s dropped below 5 percent vacancy, Bell Partners has made a significant buy. The firm has just purchased the 422-unit Seaport Channelside apartments in Tampa for $66 million, bringing its total portfolio in the city to four properties.

According to Ariel Property Advisors’ “Multi-Family Quarter in Review: New York City” report, New York multi-family sales increased 34 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

360 Residences, a mixed-use apartment high-rise in downtown San Jose, has come under the ownership of Capri Capital, courtesy of a $118 million transaction. Capri purchased the upscale multi-family property from SJ Real Estate Partners, a subsidiary of Kennedy Wilson.

Broad Street Development and Crow Holdings have partnered on an $85 million investment for two buildings in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park neighborhood.

Kennedy Wilson has shed two multi-family assets — 360 Residences in San Jose and Arbor Creek Apartment Homes in Beaverton, Ore. — for a total of $154 million to two separate buyers.

Starpoint CEO Paul Daneshrad blogs on CPE’s From the Inside about how changes in U.S. demographics are impacting the multi-family market.

American Realty Advisors’ commercial real estate purchasing activity has just swelled by approximately 900,000 square feet — and then some — with the recent addition of five properties spanning the industrial, multi-family, office and retail sectors.

KBS Legacy Partners Apartment REIT has just completed the purchase of the 255-unit The Residence at Waterstone in Pikesville, Md., taking it off the hands of Avalon Village Green Associates for $64.7 million.

According to Brown Harris Stevens’ first-quarter 2012 Manhattan Residential Market Report, the average Manhattan apartment sale price was about $1.9 million, up 9 percent from the same period in 2011.

DeBartolo Development and Elco Landmark Residential have joined forces on the acquisition of a 542-residence apartment complex in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.