New York City investment sales came to life in the second quarter, recovering from an unexpected setback in the first.
Some 454 transactions were completed from April to June, adding up to $5.3 billion. The dollar volume nearly tripled the first-quarter total, according to Ariel Property Advisors’ quarterly investment sales report.
It also doubled the dollar volume of a year ago, but was still far short of 2019’s second quarter when deals worth nearly $10 billion were closed.
Commercial real estate transactions typically require three to six months to close, so the second quarter results reflect a pandemic recovery that began earlier this year, said Ariel’s president, Shimon Shkury.
“There’s still a lot of room to improve,” Shkury said. “But the bounce-back has been robust over the past six months.”
With more people who had decamped during the pandemic now returning to New York City, market-rate rental apartments are thriving again, giving investors confidence in the future, he said.
Multifamily transaction volume in the second quarter was $1.67 billion, more than twice the volume of a year ago.
Major deals included Stonehenge Partners’ $134.5 million acquisition of a 68-unit, white-brick apartment building at 920 Park Avenue on the Upper East Side from a private family. The deal closed in April.
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Another nine-figure deal occurred in the Bronx: In June, Blackshore Realty sold a 15-apartment-building portfolio with 769 units to Neighborhood Restore Housing Development Fund for $122 million, according Ariel.
The portfolio included 2290 and 2344 Davidson Avenue in University Heights; 1805 and 1815 University Avenue in Morris Heights; 373 East 188th Street in Fordham; 1245 Findlay Avenue in Concourse Village; 1206 Westchester Avenue in Foxhurst; 1410 and 1454 Grand Concourse and 1575 Townsend Avenue in Mount Eden; 1097 and 1177 Walton Avenue in Concourse; 1857 and 1881 Walton Avenue in Mount Hope; and 2160 Walton Avenue in Fordham.
The office sector recorded $974 million in sales, tripling the volume of a year ago. The total figure was boosted by two major Manhattan transactions that closed in June.
One was SL Green Realty’s $325 million sale of 635-641 Sixth Avenue in Chelsea to Spear Street Capital. The 267,000-square-foot building was renovated in 2015 with a new lobby, elevators and a penthouse rooftop offering outdoor amenity and event space. The largest tenant, software company Infor, recently renewed its 90,000-square-foot lease.
“The world of offices really depends on location and quality,” Shkury said. “The buildings that are being built right now, like One Vanderbilt and buildings in Hudson Yards and World Trade Center, will benefit from their quality.”
Northwood Investors also closed on a deal to acquire a pair of buildings at 520 and 524-528 Broadway in Soho from the Propp family for $323.5 million.