Halstead bets on Harlem with bigger office

Expansion comes as neighborhood sales are taking off

2161-2169 Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem (Inset: Halstead's Sandy Wilson)
2161-2169 Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem (Inset: Halstead's Sandy Wilson)

Halstead Property is relocating its Harlem operations to an office that is nearly double the size, the company told The Real Deal.

About 20 Halstead agents currently work at the firm’s storefront office at 175 Lenox Avenue office, which opened in 2006. By mid-fall, the brokerage expects to open its doors at 2169 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, a 2,300-square-foot ground-floor space near 117th Street that will fit up to 40 agents, a Halstead spokesperson said.

Sandy Wilson, director of sales, and Gus Perry, executive sales director, will run the new office.

The Harlem expansion is part of the firm’s overall growth in Upper Manhattan. Halstead added an office at 819 West 187th Street in Washington Heights in March after buying the assets of residential brokerage Stein-Perry Real Estate.

Wilson said she expects Halstead’s sales in Harlem to double in the next year, in part because Harlem is attracting prospective buyers and renters who are outgrowing the Upper West Side — or hail from the far reaches of the world, such as an investor from Germany and a recent townhouse buyer from Argentina.

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Douglas Elliman too is making moves in the neighborhood by relocating to an office at 2112 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, near 114th Street, as reported earlier this month. The new office is 30 percent larger than its old digs.

Halstead has begun recruiting agents to join the new office, with some priority given to those fluent in French, Spanish or Japanese.

“The office has been growing exponentially in the resale market, and we’ve been busy with rentals,” said Wilson, who joined Halstead in March from the Corcoran Group.

The brokerage, headed by CEO Diane Ramirez, is also growing in Hoboken, having recently signed a lease for a 3,800-square-foot, two-floor office, located at the corner of Second and Washington streets, a spokesperson said. The brokerage opened its first out-of-state office in Hoboken, at 79 Hudson Street, in 2009.

Halstead also has seven offices in Manhattan, five in Brooklyn, two in the Bronx, two in the Hamptons, one in Hudson Valley and seven in Connecticut.