New York’s multifamily market had its strongest month in more than a year in March, with large-scale Manhattan sales pushing dollar volume to more than $1 billion.
This was the first time that dollar volume hit more than $1 billion in 2018 and the highest total for one month since December 2016, when dollar volume reached about $2.3 billion, according to Ariel Property Advisors. The high dollar volume was largely due to a strong month in Manhattan, which contributed almost $600 million to the city’s total.
The dollar volume was spread out across 84 buildings and 46 transactions overall. The three metrics saw year-over-year increases of 132, 110 and 53 percent, respectively.
Manhattan saw nine transactions across 12 buildings in March, including two deals for more than $100 million, both on the Upper West Side. These were the $287 million sale of Stonehenge Village to A&E Real Estate Holdings and the roughly $116 million sale of 203 and 210-230 West 107th Street from Isaac Kassirer’s Emerald Equity Group to the Orbach Group.
Northern Manhattan saw five transactions across 17 buildings for about $56.9 million, while the Bronx saw 15 transactions across 36 buildings for about $185.7 million. This was the highest transaction and building volume across all of the city’s submarkets, and the borough’s largest deal was the roughly $61.5 million sale of Emerald Equity Group’s 14 buildings to a group of investors led by Ben and Joe Soleimani.
Brooklyn saw 13 transactions across 15 buildings for about $190.4 million in March. Its largest sale was at 442 Grand Street in Williamsburg for $43 million, which Bronstein Properties bought from Babaev Group LLC. Activity in Queens was once again quiet, with the borough seeing four transactions across four buildings for $68.1 million. This was largely thanks to the $56.5 million sale of 94-25 56th Avenue in Elmhurst to Treetop Development, the only deal in the borough to break the $10 million mark.
The city’s multifamily market was infamously slow throughout 2017, but it has started off 2018 on a stronger note. It saw about $3 billion in dollar volume across 148 transactions and 239 buildings throughout the first quarter of the year.