NEW BRUNSWICK—“The money is betting on New Jersey,” says Alexander Cohen, CEO of Liberty SBF, a CRE financing firm, and one of the panelists featured at next week's RealShare New Jersey Conference. In comments provided exclusively to GlobeSt.com in advance of his appearance at the conference, Cohen says “The fundamental bedrock infrastructure of a CRE expansion and recovery are evident,” while warning that the lack of job creation in the middle class is a major drag holding back full recovery, including growth in occupancy and rents.
Unfunded state pension liabilities and high state taxes are also responsible for slower growth, Cohen says. “The result is tepid expansion plans for corporations and a significant exodus of the middle class approaching retirement age,” he says.
Cohen, CEO of Liberty SBF, a leading commercial real estate finance company, will join John Adderly, executive vice president - managing director, NAI Mertz; Jose Cruz, senior managing director, HFF; Nat Gambuzza; vice president of investments, Marcus & Millichap; and David Simon, executive managing director, Massey Knakal Realty Services, on a panel entitled, “Transactions: Getting the Deals Done,” moderated by Mitchell S. Berkey, Esq., co-chair, Real Estate Development and Land Use Group, Wolff & Samson PC ,scheduled to start at 10:45 a.m. The conference kicks off Thursday, September 11 at 7:45am at the Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick.
“The office sector has seen increased occupancy in Morristown, Newark and Parsippany,” says Cohen. “High-end retail located in strong population centers has recovered to the extent that high-end retailers are enjoying sales that exceed 2011 levels. The flip side is the small store tenants that continued to be affected by the decline in household income of $3,000 since the onset of the great recession. This submarket has difficulty accessing bank credit as well. The result is static sales resulting in sluggish increase in occupancy in the unanchored sector.”
The wave of commercial real estate foreclosures has stabilized, says Cohen. “In fact, the amount of capital chasing acquisitions has compressed cap rates to the extent that value added assets are trading at only a slight premium to core assets,” he says. “This can be attributed to many factors that include scarcity of assets for sale, tight zoning regulations and optimism that New Jersey will effectively address job creation and high taxes.”
Liberty SBF has closed a number of multimillion-dollar job-creating SBA 504 loans in the state, including a purchase and partial renovation for a luxury auto dealership in Washington Township, says Cohen. The firm also provided a quick close $1.5 million bridge loan for the owner of a mixed-use property on the Rutgers University campus, and is working on an $18 million loan for the refinance and completion of tenant improvements on a retail shopping center located in Edison.
More information on the RealShare New Jersey Conference is available at http://www.globest.com/conferences/realshare-new-jersey-2014/.
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Steve Lubetkin
Steve Lubetkin is the New Jersey and Philadelphia editor for GlobeSt.com. He is currently filling in covering Chicago and Midwest markets until a new permanent editor is named. He previously filled in covering Atlanta. Steve’s journalism background includes print and broadcast reporting for NJ news organizations. His audio and video work for GlobeSt.com has been honored by the Garden State Journalists Association, and he has also been recognized for video by the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He has produced audio podcasts on CRE topics for the NAR Commercial Division and the CCIM Institute. Steve has also served (from August 2017 to March 2018) as national broadcast news correspondent for CEOReport.com, a news website focused on practical advice for senior executives in small- and medium-sized companies. Steve also reports on-camera and covers conferences for NJSpotlight.com, a public policy news coverage website focused on New Jersey government and industry; and for clients of StateBroadcastNews.com, a division of The Lubetkin Media Companies LLC. Steve has been the computer columnist for the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey, since 1996. Steve is co-author, with Toronto-based podcasting pioneer Donna Papacosta, of the book, The Business of Podcasting: How to Take Your Podcasting Passion from the Personal to the Professional. You can email Steve at [email protected].
