Erez Itzhaki bows out of namesake brokerage to focus on development, acquisitions

Erez Itzhaki, founder of Itzhaki Properties, has handed control of his eponymous firm to a new partner to focus solely on his acquisitions and development firm, the Keystone Group NY, he told The Real Deal. Real estate executive Isaac Glasman, a former broker and auctioneer, has taken over management of Itzhaki Properties, the 11-year-old Soho-based investment sales firm, as the company’s CEO, Itzhaki said. Both parties declined to comment on Glasman’s financial investment in the company.

“I had not been active with the business for a few years,” Itzhaki said, when asked why he’d chosen to bring in a partner to head up the management of the company. “I was not running it properly.”

Itzhaki Properties’ recent transactions include brokering the sale of one of the largest building transactions in Queens this year last year, in which Long Island-based Benedict Realty Group closed on a mixed-use building in Jackson Heights for $14 million.

Itzakhi will now being focusing exclusively on Keystone, a company he founded in 2005 with business partner Gil Boosidan, based at 580 Broadway, he said (note: correction appended). Among Keystone’s recent acquisitions is a 13-unit rental building at 25 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights, which it plans on reconfiguring into a 3,000-square-foot townhouse and nine separate rental units, as well as 138 West 19th Street, a development site in Chelsea at which Keystone is planning a six-unit boutique condominium. The latter is slated to be completed in 12 to 15 months.

“We were doing a deal a year,” he said. “Now we’re planning on buying a building a month or even more. We’re very active.”

The new leadership took control April 1, Itzhaki said. Glasman, most recently a principal with Massey Knakal Realty Services, said he jumped at the opportunity to take a leadership role at Itzhaki Properties. It said it was the kind of position he’d been searching for.

“I have a diverse background and a lot of different ideas,” Glasman said, explaining that he intends on upgrading some of the brokerage’s computer systems and hiring some new blood. He plans on expanding the brokerage, which currently has 12 agents, to double its size in terms of agents within the next year, he said.

Keystone, which has closed five deals in the past year, according to a spokesperson, is currently pursuing mixed-use, multi-family, and office buildings, Itzhaki said, and is planning a quick succession of acquisitions in coming months.