Former JDS partner joins Elliman’s Holly Parker Team

Real estate investor David Juracich is breaking into business as a broker.

A longtime partner of JDS Development’s Michael Stern, Juracich is trading development for sales as the newest member of The Holly Parker Team at Douglas Elliman. 

Juracich, who worked with Stern on 111 West 57th Street, said he only obtained his broker’s license to oversee a couple of sales at the building to buyers interested in purchasing units with cryptocurrency. 

But a nudge from Douglas Elliman chairman and CEO Howard Lorber pushed him to consider pursuing sales full time, especially as the price of land and construction continue to hinder new development in the city.

“As you always hear developers say, the price of land has to come down for me to get attracted,” Juracich said, adding that the financial risk of new development in the current market isn’t conducive for smaller developers and investors like himself. 

“A lot of people do happen to call me very often about my opinions and thoughts on valuations on certain streets, certain builders, certain developers,” Juracich said. “So I thought I’d join [Holly’s] team and see where I can take this.”

Parker’s nine-person team placed 11th in The Real Deal’s 2022 ranking of the top resale brokers in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens with $145 million in closed sales across 47 deals and 11th among new development brokers with $156 million in sales volume across 13 deals. 

With the new development pipeline slowing, Parker said she plans to target resales. 

“I’m done with new development,” Parker said. “We are focused on resale, and because we know so many of these buildings so intricately from the new dev, we are doing some really exciting deals.”

Juracich, an Australian and former derivatives trader known as “Wavey Dave,” first teamed up with Stern in 2008 on a condo development in Gowanus. Stern was just 27 when Juracich put up $2.6 million for the project at 202 Eighth Street.  

Though the Great Recession hindered its progress, Stern and Juracich restarted construction on the project as a rental development in 2011 and sold it two years later to Werber Management for $37.8 million. 

Juracich has since built and sold over 3,500 apartments with a combined value over $3 billion, including Walker Tower, Stella Tower, American Copper Building and The Fitzroy in West Chelsea.