Livingston, NJ — Multifamily continues to fare much better than its office and retail counterparts in the current protracted COVID environment, with investment sales remaining steady according to the investment brokerage professionals at Gebroe-Hammer Associates. During September and October, the Livingston, N.J.-based firm has recorded $164M in transactions involving over 1,030 units from North Jersey to the South Jersey/Greater Philadelphia Metro.
The transactions involved apartment-rental assets across North Jersey’s urban submarkets of Essex and Passaic counties, Central Jersey’s Monmouth County shore region and the Greater Philadelphia Metro submarket of Burlington County, NJ.
“Multifamily has rallied and once again is demonstrating its resiliency thanks to extremely strong pre-pandemic fundamentals,” said Ken Uranowitz, president, who has been with Gebroe-Hammer since its inception 45 years ago.
“As could be expected, there was a slight pause in the spring as the virus rapidly swept through the Northeast in its earliest days,” he added. “However, a vast delta persists between a continued industry undersupply and strong demand – not to mention a remain-in-place tenant philosophy and a prevailing investor mantra of ‘people always need a place to live’ – that have kept a significant majority of deals on track to close and a steady flow of assets coming online, both on market and off market.”
According to Reis/Moody’s Analytics, North Jersey’s building-dense apartment stock in particular has fared the COVID recession much better than major metros like New York City, where high rent/small living space has prompted a migration to the suburbs. The full span of the North Jersey corridor boasts an eclectic mix of urban-core and fringe-city submarkets as well as vibrant outer-suburb municipalities. Furthermore, the apartment-housing mix is just as diverse, ranging from pre-1970s-era garden apartments to class A new construction.
“In particular, New Jersey has attracted an influx of former city dwellers seeking to relocate so they can have more square footage, be near outdoor spaces like parks and beaches and take full advantage of lifestyle services in the immediate and surrounding area – all at a cost savings,” said Uranowitz.