Ken Picerne grew up in a family-owned real estate investment business, Picerne Real Estate Group, based in Rhode Island. As COO, Mr. Picerne spent a decade leading a major expansion of Picerne Real Estate Group into the sunbelt states and was responsible for the development of over 12,000 multifamily units. Today, Picerne Real Estate Group is one of the largest family-owned multifamily developers and owners in the U.S., with more than 45,000 multifamily units.

In 1988, Mr. Picerne left his family business and founded The Picerne Group to invest in the California multifamily market. In the late 1980s, The Picerne Group developed apartment communities with joint venture partners who contributed land at a nominal basis. This structure kept The Picerne Group’s land costs low and allowed The Picerne Group and its joint venture partners to prosper during the early 1990s recession, when its competitors floundered.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Picerne read the changing market and successfully moved the company out of development and into acquisitions. When the market corrected in 1991/1992, The Picerne Group was one of the first buyers of assets being liquidated by the U.S. Government/Resolution Trust Corporation during the savings and loan crisis. From 1992 to 1998, The Picerne Group focused its acquisitions on the hard-hit Southern California market, and accumulated over 5,000 multifamily units, as well as raw land parcels that were re-entitled for multifamily development. Many of these investments were cleverly capitalized through partnerships with local Redevelopment Agencies.

The Picerne Group paused investing in 1998, when the U.S. apartment market had corrected back to the high-water mark that had been achieved in the late 1980s, and investment margins thus became unattractive to The Picerne Group. The Picerne Group liquidated nearly all the assets it had acquired during this investment cycle, at significant profit, during the 2005-2007 market bubble.

Although The Picerne Group had paused investing in U.S. apartments due to deteriorating fundamentals, in 1998 The Picerne Group was approached by a Japanese bank with which The Picerne Group had developed a close relationship through its U.S. investment activities earlier in the decade. This bank had been asked by the Japanese government to take the lead in developing a program for the Japanese banks to dispose of their non-performing loans. Because of the trusting relationship that had developed between The Picerne Group and this bank, The Picerne Group was asked to participate in the program that the bank developed.

Over the next few years, The Picerne Group became one of the largest buyers of portfolios of Japanese non-performing loans. The Picerne Group bought portfolios having a nominal value of several billion dollars from various Japanese banks and financial institutions. These loans were secured by various types of real estate assets located in Japan, Canada, Europe and the U.S. The Picerne Group liquidated the vast majority of these assets by 2005/2006, realizing exceptional profits.

In 2008, because The Picerne Group believed the margins in the non-performing loan portfolio market had deteriorated, The Picerne Group again adjusted its investment focus. Turning its focus back to the U.S., The Picerne Group began to purchase notes secured by Class A apartments. The Picerne Group made its first purchase in the 3rd quarter of 2009.

Over the ensuing 18 months, The Picerne Group invested several hundred million dollars in real estate secured notes purchased on a direct basis from major financial institutions. During this period, The Picerne Group was the largest single asset Class A apartment note buyer in the western U.S.

Opportunities to access existing Class A apartments at attractive margins through note purchases became rare in the middle of 2011, due to a recovering market. Recognizing this shift, The Picerne Group identified the beginning of a multifamily development cycle for Class A properties and created a fully integrated multifamily apartment company.  Initially, our efforts were centered on our core markets of Southern California, Denver, and Las Vegas. Over time, our strategy evolved to focus solely on acquiring and entitling land in coastal Southern California cities.

In Newport Beach, The Picerne Group developed One Uptown Newport in 2020, the most recent apartment development to be completed in the city.  In addition, we have acquired and entitled several properties with the plan to construct 3,000 units over the next few years.  In the South Bay of Los Angeles and in the city of Cerritos, we successfully entitled and developed the first apartment projects these cities have approved in decades.

In a relatively short period of time, The Picerne Group has established itself as a leading apartment company with expertise in land acquisition, entitlement, design, development, construction, and property management.  Our approach is fundamentally different from other companies in our industry. As a Family Office, we invest our own capital in the cities we identify as attractive for long-term investment.  The entitlement process presents complexities, but our philosophy of community engagement fosters collaboration with political and community stakeholders, allowing us to navigate those challenges successfully.

To better serve our lifestyle renters, our design team continually refines our unit plans and amenity spaces, prioritizing thoughtful and efficient designs to enhance functionality and elevate the resident’s experience.  While the apartment industry has shifted away from direct resident interactions, our Residential Group remains highly engaged with residents focusing on activating our purposefully designed amenity spaces.  An example of this is hosting tailored events that bring residents together, such as fitness classes, seasonal gathering, and pop-up events.

With a commitment to long term ownership and operational efficiency, we strategically build our properties in pods. This allows us to attract and retain top talent within the Residential Group to provide outstanding customer service to our residents and set the standard for excellence in multifamily living.