Gebroe-Hammer Brokers $316M in Multifamily Sales in First Quarter

LIVINGSTON, NJ—Locally-based multifamily investment brokerage firm Gebroe Hammer Associates reports it brokered $316.4 million in sales in the first quarter of this year.

The deals involved 18 transactions totaling 1,574 units in New Jersey, the Greater Philadelphia metro and New York State.

“The first quarter of the year marked a ‘carry-over’ of the same historic multifamily investment confidence that fueled one of the longest and most aggressive apartment-property investment cycles in history,” says Ken Uranowitz, Gebroe Hammer Associates president.

Among its most notable transactions included the trade of a new-construction Class-A apartment building in Woodbridge, NJ where the price per unit was $280,000; three unnamed single-property sales (one new construction/two value-add) in north, central and southern New Jersey that collectively encompassed 485 units that sold for a combined $127 million and a portfolio trade on behalf of an unnamed seller and buyer totaling more than 300 units in southeast New York State.

He says that New York and Philadelphia metro regions as a whole have historically trended with more stability as compared to their major metro counterparts nationwide and predicts that occupancy rates and asking/effective rents will eventually bounce back just as they did in the aftermath of the height of the Great Recession in early 2009 and every other downturn before that.

Uranowitz notes that while it may be premature to forecast the how and when a recalibration of the economy and the multifamily sector will take place, he adds that the “fundamental function of apartments has always ensured—and will continue to do so—their longevity and status as the most reliable living option and most resilient commercial real estate asset type.”