The Parkoff Organization has a deal in place to buy a multifamily portfolio with more than 400 apartments across Brooklyn and Queens for $115 million.
The Great Neck, Long Island-based investment firm is in contract to purchase a package of five pre-war elevator buildings concentrated in Southern Brooklyn and Eastern Queens from longtime owner Morris Weintraub Associates, sources told The Real Deal.
Representatives for Parkoff and Weintraub could not be immediately reached for comment. The portfolio — which has been in the Weintraub family since the late 1960s — spans 424 units in total, the vast majority of which are under rent stabilization.
A Marcus & Millichap team of Peter Von der Ahe, Shaun Riney, Joe Koicim and Mark Zarrella marketed the portfolio on behalf of Weintraub and negotiated both sides of the deal. A representative for the brokers declined to comment.
The largest property in the portfolio is the 107-unit 1701 West 3rd Street in Gravesend, which sits about two blocks away from the F Train subway station at Avenue P.
Three of the other buildings are in the adjacent neighborhood of Midwood: the 66-unit 1561 East 13th Street, the 60-unit 2016 Avenue N and the 65-unit 900 Avenue H.
The final Brooklyn building is the 60-unit 150 East 74th Street in Bay Ridge, and the sole Queens property is the 66-unit 175-27 Wexford Terrace in Jamaica Estates.
All of the properties date back to the 1930s and 1940s, and public records show that roughly 97 percent of the 424 units are rent stabilized.
Multifamily deal volume in the outer boroughs has been picking up lately, though pricing is still challenged. Brooklyn and Queens saw the number of deals in the third quarter increase by 9 percent and 120 percent, respectively, from a year earlier, according to Ariel Property Advisors.
Over the past six months though, average pricing for a Brooklyn multifamily property fell about 7 percent from a year earlier to $367 per square foot, according to Ariel Property’s figures. In Queens, pricing dipped about 6.5 percent to $355 per square foot.
Morris Weintraub Associates — based in Lawrence, New York, on the other side of the Queens/Nassau border from Far Rockaway — is run by Leonard Weintraub, son of the company’s late namesake. In addition to the five buildings under contract, the firm owns six other properties in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
The Parkoff Organization, meanwhile, has actively been buying or selling recently. The company, which is led by principals Richard and Adam Parkoff and owns some 60 properties, had approached Related Companies last year about acquiring a portfolio of nearly 4,000 apartments Related owns in the Bronx. Talks fell apart before advancing to the hard-contract stage, and Related sold a 12-building piece of the portfolio in February to Taconic Investment Partners for $70 million.
In June, the Parkoff Organization reached a settlement with the Fair Housing Justice Center, which last year filed a federal lawsuit accusing the landlord of discriminating against black renters. Parkoff denied any wrongdoing and agreed to pay damages and fees of $315,000.
The company has also been accused of abusing the J-51 tax incentive program.