Lee & Associates NYC Launches New Residential Division
The residential division will extend the firm’s commercial advisory services largely recognized for office and retail leasing.
NEW YORK CITY—Lee & Associates NYC, previously focused on retail and office leasing and having recently formed an investment division, has now branched into residential services. Joel Herskowitz, as an investor in Lee & Associates NYC and the COO, who was instrumental in bringing the company to Manhattan in November 2011, will oversee management of the new division. Previously, Herskowitz served as a senior director at Cushman & Wakefield from 2008 to 2010, president and CEO of Grubb & Ellis from 2001 to 2006, and an executive managing director at Newmark Knight Frank from 1998 to 2001.
The residential agents currently include Adam Frisch, Brett Fischer, Damien Palacios and Michael Musco. By the end of the year, the brokerage expects to have five to 10 agents on the team. Lee Residential NYC will handle leasing and sales, representing owners, landlords, sellers and developers.
“It used to be the case that clients wouldn’t want to work with a combined commercial and residential real estate firm,” says Frisch. “However, due to a shift in the industry, the services of a residential broker are now seen as being just as valuable as those offered by a commercial broker. As the residential arm of a commercial firm, we have unique insight into the needs of landlords, developers and sellers.”
The new residential division will complement Lee NYC’s existing commercial real estate advisory services including those for office and retail leasing, property management, and investment sales, a division formed last month. Vickram Jambu, Chris Varjan, Paul Popkin joined Lee & Associates NYC to head investment sales as senior managing directors, with brokers George Steffani, Ben Sutton and Jonathan Braun.
“A residential division was a very natural next step for us,” says James Wacht, president of Lee NYC. “After realizing that we were outsourcing so much business to residential firms, we decided that it made sense to launch our own operation. One of the most important and challenging elements of the real estate business is securing relationships. Now that the New York City office of Lee & Associates has been active for seven years, we have formed countless relationships and can finally leverage them to serve all of a client’s real estate needs.”