Gebroe-Hammer First Half Sales Hit $775M

LIVINGSTON, NJ—Multifamily investment brokerage firm Gebroe-Hammer Associates continues its trend of large transactions in the value-add apartment space, reporting more than $775 million in sales encompassing 5,645 units for the first half of 2018, according to Ken Uranowitz, president.

The firm serves a diverse client base of private individuals, private equity firms and institutional investors focusing on suburban and urban high-rise and garden-apartment properties.

“These latest milestones have shored up Gebroe-Hammer’s posture within the multifamily investment brokerage space as the firm of choice among private AND institutional investors locally, regionally and nationally,” says Uranowitz. “A good percentage of our client base remains balanced between institutional investors and private individuals – many of whom have been associated with our firm since its inception 43 years ago and form the backbone of multifamily ownership in the region.”

While initially concentrating on the multifamily property space in New Jersey, over the past four decades, Gebroe-Hammer has established a major presence in the northeastern Pennsylvania and New York State submarkets, while representing client interests nationally. Gebroe-Hammer also markets mixed-use and free-standing office and retail properties.

“The first six months have been extremely robust in terms of deal totals and units sold, with demand for every asset class—from class-A to value-add B/C product—hitting all-time high levels,” says Uranowitz. “Apartment buildings, regardless of vintage or tenant demographic, are the frontrunner on investor lists. They cover the full spectrum of neighborhoods from transit-rich cities that are all the rage among millennials to commuter-friendly suburban-bedroom communities.”

Gebroe-Hammer’s notable sales highlights during the first half mirror these trends. In early June, the firm finalized a groundbreaking $328 million portfolio sale of 118 buildings with 2,137 units spanning New Jersey’s Gateway Region of Hudson County. Exclusively representing a single seller, over the course of 18 months Gebroe-Hammer arranged six separate deals involving the urban low- and mid-rise properties poised for repositioning.

Other key New Jersey trades have involved several prominent properties throughout the state. These include the $56 million sale of Thousand Oaks Village, a 304-unit garden community in Atlantic Highlands; $50 million sale of 452 multifamily units at Forest Hill Terrace Apartments, a garden-apartment community in Newark’s North Ward; and the $30 million sale of Donaldson Park Apartments in Highland Park. New price-per-unit benchmarks also were set in East Orange ($257,000+/742 Park Ave.) and Cranford/Union County ($337,500/The Hamlet).

“Our success is directly tied to every broker we have deeply entrenched in individual territories,” says Uranowitz. “Because of their unrivaled knowledge of market values and current active investors, they are able to achieve maximum value for owners. Despite upticks in interest rates cap rates have not decompressed remarkably while demand continues to be voracious for multifamily product.”

The Greater Philadelphia/Northeast Pennsylvania metro has been another focal point of activity for Gebroe-Hammer’s market specialists. In the suburban Camden County municipality of Lindenwold, NJ, an emerging out-commuter enclave of Philadelphia, the firm arranged the $32.1 million sale of Woodland Village, a 546-unit garden-style community. To the north in Lehigh County, the firm closed the $26.1 million sale of Lehigh Crossing, a 211-unit apartment and townhome community.

Gebroe-Hammer says it entered the year with tremendous momentum, closing out 2017 with 106 deals involving more than 10,616 units, including four that exceeded $100 million.