Garden State Multifamily ‘White Hot,’ Office Lukewarm

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ-Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s may have downgraded the economic outlook for New Jersey, but the industry’s top commercial real estate leaders agreed that the state’s four major property sectors—mainly multifamily—have helped keep it positive. With the single-family market still in-flux and lending standards remaining tight for potential homebuyers, the strength of rental housing and other development trends were discussed during RealShare NJ 2012 at the Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick, produced by ALM Real Estate Media Group, parent company of GlobeSt.com. The conference attracted 500 of the industry’s biggest and brightest players in the game to the city.

During the event’s “C-Suite Update” panel moderated by outgoing and longtime EDA chief Caren Franzini, developer Carl Goldberg, principal at Roseland Property Co., one of the state’s biggest builders of rental housing along Hudson County’s “Gold Coast,” including a new project in the works in Jersey City’s Exchange Place neighborhood, said the multifamily sector will continue to stay strong even though single-family is slowly picking up. “There’s no other way to describe it,” he said. “Rents are up, occupancies are down and there’s a surge in new apartment construction and mixed-use communities around the region.”