NYC’s multifamily dollar volume in March hit highest level since 2016

Sales cracked the $1B mark for the first time this year

Stonehenge Village, Ofer Yardeni and Douglas Eisenberg
Stonehenge Village, Ofer Yardeni and Douglas Eisenberg

New York’s multifamily market had its strongest month in more than a year in March, with large-scale Manhattan sales pushing dollar volume to more than $1 billion.

This was the first time that dollar volume hit more than $1 billion in 2018 and the highest total for one month since December 2016, when dollar volume reached about $2.3 billion, according to Ariel Property Advisors. The high dollar volume was largely due to a strong month in Manhattan, which contributed almost $600 million to the city’s total.

The dollar volume was spread out across 84 buildings and 46 transactions overall. The three metrics saw year-over-year increases of 132, 110 and 53 percent, respectively.

Manhattan saw nine transactions across 12 buildings in March, including two deals for more than $100 million, both on the Upper West Side. These were the $287 million sale of Stonehenge Village to A&E Real Estate Holdings  and the roughly $116 million sale of 203 and 210-230 West 107th Street from Isaac Kassirer’s Emerald Equity Group to the Orbach Group.

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Northern Manhattan saw five transactions across 17 buildings for about $56.9 million, while the Bronx saw 15 transactions across 36 buildings for about $185.7 million. This was the highest transaction and building volume across all of the city’s submarkets, and the borough’s largest deal was the roughly $61.5 million sale of Emerald Equity Group’s 14 buildings to a group of investors led by Ben and Joe Soleimani.

Brooklyn saw 13 transactions across 15 buildings for about $190.4 million in March. Its largest sale was at 442 Grand Street in Williamsburg for $43 million, which Bronstein Properties bought from Babaev Group LLC. Activity in Queens was once again quiet, with the borough seeing four transactions across four buildings for $68.1 million. This was largely thanks to the $56.5 million sale of 94-25 56th Avenue in Elmhurst to Treetop Development, the only deal in the borough to break the $10 million mark.

The city’s multifamily market was infamously slow throughout 2017, but it has started off 2018 on a stronger note. It saw about $3 billion in dollar volume across 148 transactions and 239 buildings throughout the first quarter of the year.