One Parkway, Wallington, NJ

LIVINGSTON, NJ—As multifamily investing enters the home stretch of 2018, trading throughout the entire North Jersey Metro is gaining slightly, according to the brokerage professionals at Gebroe-Hammer Associates. In recent weeks, the firm has arranged 14 transactions encompassing more than 130 units that sold for more than $18.18 million throughout the North Jersey counties of Bergen, Essex and Union.

Collectively, these three counties account for a combined in-place inventory of 548 buildings and 113,876 units based on the most recent data from REIS.

In the North Jersey Metro, Bergen County's overall housing stock ranks first in terms of existing apartment buildings (227), while Hudson County ranks as the highest for total in-place apartment units (55,428).

“Rents throughout the North Jersey Metro continue their advance, in terms of both asking and effective rents, and are expected to do so through year-end 2020 and beyond,” says Ken Uranowitz, Gebroe-Hammer president. “While the metro-wide development cycle finally reaches its peak at the close of this year, a balanced market and leveled off occupancies will be the end result. New construction has and will continue to render class B/C product—long regarded as far more affordable and the 'fixer-uppers'—more expensive in terms of property values and rent appreciation rates due to the value-add factor.”

In Bergen County, Gebroe-Hammer's North Jersey market specialists arranged two separate trades consisting of 48 units in Wallington and Ridgefield Park. The Wallington sale involved a newly constructed 33-unit riverfront apartment community at One Parkway, which sold for $6.65 million. Gebroe-Hammer's executive vice president Greg Pine and vice president Gehane Triarsi exclusively represented the seller and procured the buyer in the transaction.

“This property posed an almost unheard-of multifamily investment opportunity for Bergen County, with its new construction and high-end apartment and community amenities,” says Pine. “Situated in the county's southwest quadrant, One Parkway is less than 13 miles from Midtown Manhattan and a popular choice among the area's commuter residential base.”

Approximately seven miles to the east, senior vice president Debbie Pomerantz arranged a second Bergen County sale at 82 Brinkerhoff St., in Ridgefield Park. Built in 1928, the brick-façade four-story property at the corner of Euclid Avenue features 15 units and sold for $2.4 million.

Not one to be overshadowed by its “affluent neighbor of Bergen County,” the Newark/East Essex submarket is garnering tremendous investor and tenant interest throughout its re-emerging urban hubs like East Orange and Newark. Most recently, executive vice president David Jarvis closed two sales in which he represented the sellers and procured the buyers of 387 4^th Avenue and 409 Summer Ave., both in Newark. “Long-awaited revitalization initiatives are feeding an economic infusion in the state's most-populous city, rendering multifamily one of the hottest investments in Newark today,” says Jarvis.

A similar, but smaller-scale resurgence also is occurring in Union County's Plainfield, where vice president Adam Zweibel collaborated with Triarsi on the sale of a four-property package consisting of 57 total units. The properties were located at 122-138 E. 7^th and 985-1003 Park in the heart of the city. Collectively, they sold for $6.23 million.

“Throughout the entire North Jersey Metro, municipalities seem to be asking themselves one common question: what can we do to remain economically sound over the long term? The answer: refresh, reinvent and attract the millennial and empty-nester renter base,” says Uranowitz. “Multifamily investing has been and always will be the catalyst for change and longevity in the greater metro area.”