Tough yet schmaltzy landlord scores $53M resi sale

A landlord who likes playing hardball recently scored a big payday.

Ron Shoshany this month sold three uptown residential buildings spanning 87,508 square feet for a combined $53.5 million, according to property records and brokerage firm Cignature Realty.

The buildings include a 65,448-square-foot property in Washington Heights, an Upper East property spanning 13,900 square feet and an 8,160-square-foot building on the Upper West Side.

Lazer Sternhell and Peter Vanderpool brokered the sale.

After buying the buildings in the 1990s and early 2000s, Shoshany rented apartments on the Upper East and West Sides through Sirkin Realty. He rankled neighbors by listing the units on Airbnb, making one of the buildings into an illegal hotel, and assigned corny names such as “Razzmatazz,” “Skyfall” and “Authenticity” to his rental units.

In Washington Heights, where he acquired the largest building in the portfolio from his wife Barbara Sheril’s family, he once shocked a commercial tenant by leasing a storefront to Starbucks in the same building as the tenant’s independent coffee shop.

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“Isn’t that what America is all about?” Shoshany replied when the New York Times asked him about renting to a corporate chain that would siphon revenue from an existing tenant. The coffee shop, named Jou Jou Cafe, remains in the building, as does Starbucks.

Cignature declined a request for comment. Sirkin Realty did not return a request for comment. Shoshany could not be reached.

The sale of the three buildings came as New York City’s multifamily market roared back to the most expensive in the United States. A report by Zumper published earlier this month showed Gotham rents have risen 32 percent since this time last year, putting the city ahead of San Francisco for most expensive.