Rainbow Estates Group, a Brooklyn-based investment company headed by Irving Langer and Leibel Lederman, has purchased a portfolio of multi-family properties in Upper Manhattan owned by landlord Baruch Singer, The Real Deal has learned. Sources with knowledge of the area said the group paid close to $340 million.
With this deal, the under-the-radar Rainbow now controls a large amount of property in Northern Manhattan and the Bronx. The company picked up 24 Bronx buildings from a joint venture between SG2 Properties, Fannie Mae and BlackRock Realty in 2010, paying $117 million.
The 84 properties comprised within the Singer portfolio include large swaths of buildings between West 111th Street and West 141st Street, according to a mortgage agreement obtained from public property records. Rainbow took out a $214 million mortgage from Signature Bank to finance the transaction, records show. The deal appears to have closed Nov. 14.
Neither Rainbow nor Singer was immediately available for comment. It was not clear if there had been a broker involved in the deal.
Robert Shapiro, first vice president of sales at brokerage Massey Knakal Realty Services, who was not involved in the deal, told TRD that the transaction was further evidence that the market for multi-family properties in Northern Manhattan was heating up. Earlier this month, Shapiro brokered the $45 million sale of a four-building Hamilton Heights portfolio to Heritage Real Estate Partners.
Meanwhile, Singer, often dubbed a slumlord by tenants, has been predominantly in selling mode in recent years. In May, the landlord sold off a seven-story, 48-unit building at 92 Morningside Avenue between West 122nd and West 123rd streets to Renaissance Realty Group.