Brooklyn multifamily portfolio hits the market asking $70M

Crown Heights-based multifamily investor CBZ Management is marketing a portfolio of Brooklyn apartment buildings with an asking price of $70 million.

The nine walk-up apartment buildings — stretching across Crown Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Prospect Park South, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick — combine for 212 units across more than 180,000 square feet.

All of the apartments are rent-stabilized, with rents averaging 65 percent below market rates.

“Central Brooklyn continues to be one of the most in-demand, up-and-coming residential markets in Brooklyn, showing no signs of slowing down,” said Avison Young’s James Nelson, who has the exclusive to market the properties.

Nelson added that the portfolio offers “multiple income-producing multifamily properties in one of Brooklyn’s best markets,” and marketing materials pitch the package as a value-add play. The total net operating income is $2.47 million on net income of $3.6 million.

News of the listing was first reported earlier this week by Real Estate Alert.

CBZ Management, headed by investor Shmaryahu Baumgarten, assembled the portfolio of properties between 2003 and 2015 for a total cost of $27.78 million, property records show.

The largest of the properties, the 49-unit 424 Albany Avenue in Crown Heights, last traded in 2014 for $9.65 million. The owners have upgraded the mechanical systems in all but one of the nine buildings, and the roofs have recently been redone on six of the buildings.

The addresses are: 33 Westminster Road, 161 Vernon Avenue, 424 Albany Avenue, 110 Martense Street, 1320 and 1399 Saint John’s Place, 1198 Carroll Street and 210 Himrod Street. Nelson is marketing the properties with his colleagues Fritz Richter, Sam Schertz, Joseph Rosenfeld and Allan Fries.

Brooklyn’s multifamily market saw 35 sales in the third quarter, an increase of 9 percent over the same time last year, according to Ariel Property Advisors. The dollar volume of those transactions was up 51 percent year-over-year to $561.31 million.

Elsewhere in the borough, the Parkoff Organization has a contract to purchase a 400-unit portfolio of multifamily buildings for $115 million. Earlier this year, Jonas Equities paid $46 million in August to buy a pair of apartment buildings in Sheepshead Bay and Kensington for $46 million.