Gebroe-Hammer Associates said Monday it set a record for year-end sales, posting $231 million in transactions during the month of December.
The Livingston-based multifamily real estate brokerage firm said in a news release that, for the month, its specialists arranged 14 sales involving 1,315 units across seven counties in New Jersey and three in Northeast Pennsylvania.
“Multifamily properties continue to be in extreme demand, and deal velocity remains accelerative, setting the stage for a robust 2018,” Gebroe-Hammer President Ken Uranowitz said in a prepared statement. “Demand will be even greater in 2018, thanks to the new tax law, which lowers the deductibility of residential property taxes and mortgage interest. … Unfortunately, however, this will create an even greater imbalance of the supply/demand dynamic in an already-undersupplied marketplace.”
In northern and central New Jersey, Gebroe-Hammer handled seven apartment building or complex sales, worth more than $81 million in total and encompassing more than 300 units. In southwest New Jersey, the firm handled two sales totaling more than 200 units.
“The more things change, the more they remain the same in New Jersey,” Uranowitz, who has been with Gebroe-Hammer since its founding 43 years ago, said. “Institutional investors have made tremendous inroads with strategic acquisitions that have mostly focused on ‘trophy’ buildings, while longtime, multigeneration private owners have held onto their Class B properties. … Both recognize that the tides have been gradually changing, with the latter entertaining the idea of shedding their long-held assets in lieu of implementing substantial capital improvements.”
Gebroe-Hammer added that 2017 saw it record four separate $100 million-plus sales, a first for the firm, and arrange Philadelphia-based Post Brothers’ first property in the New Jersey market with the $166 million sale of the Duchess on the Hudson waterfront.
