Barak Realty to open across town

As the economy has shaken up the real estate industry, far more firms have closed offices than opened them.

But another firm has added an office to the “open” column: Barak Realty, which signed a lease yesterday for a storefront space at 1458 Third Avenue, between 82nd and 83rd streets, Barak Dunayer, the firm’s president, said.

The company needs to build out the 700-square-foot space and plans to open the office in November, Dunayer said. Sixteen or 20 agents, both new hires and a few “anchors” from the firm’s 237 West 72nd Street office, will work out of the new space, he said.

The Upper West Side office, which has about 40 agents, is currently the company’s only office.

Dunayer said that after a rough fourth quarter in 2008, business improved in the first two quarters of this year, so it made sense for the firm to open a new office.

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“I attribute this to hard work and good professionalism and [the] skills of our agents,” he said. “They adapted to the new market out there.”

Dunayer refused to discuss the terms of the new storefront lease, but he said the rent was about 30 percent lower than what the space would have gone for a year ago.

“We always wanted to get a… storefront presence, [and] right now the rents are better,” he said. The firm’s Upper West Side office is on the second floor.

Having an Upper East Side office was a long-term goal for the company, too.

“I think every real estate company that’s respectable in New York — you need to have an East Side presence,” Dunayer said.